Editorial
Union budget and Operation Green Hunt:
Two faces of imperialism
During the night of 22nd February,
Central Reserve Police Forces
murdered Lalmohan Tudu, a popular
leader of People’s Committee against
Police Atrocities, an organisation which
is fighting against the economic ruin of
tribal areas and state repression, in
front of his own house in Lalgarh.
CRPF personnel called him out along
with his two relatives and shot them
dead in front of his wife, daughter and
mother. A couple of days later, far from
the poverty stricken villages of ‘India’s
hinterland’, where people are dying out
of hunger and police bullets, Finance
minister of India presented the nation
a budget that envisages to make
‘development more inclusive’! At a
first glance, burning villages of
Dantewada and air-conditioned
corridor of secretariats in central Delhi
appears to be at poles apart. So does
P. Chidambaram’s job as the
commander-in-chief of Operation
Green Hunt and Pranab Mukherjee’s
role as the ‘messiah of the poor’. But
like all good puppet shows, this is just
an appearance. The threads which
control these actors in their respective
settings are controlled by a skilful
puppeteer – the global monopoly
capital – the likes of Shell, Tata and
Walmart. While the ‘incorporated
India’ and its flag-bearer, the media,
applaud this ‘performance’, the script
of ‘inclusive development’ remains the
same as in last two decades – loot the
mass and transfer the booty to wealthy
few - unfolds, now, at a faster pace
than ever before. The tragedy of
dispossession and plunder, the tragedy
of destruction of grassroots
development at the behest of imperial
capital by its Indian stooges continue
with an unprecedented urgency.
Anatomy of plunder including the erstwhile feudal ruling
class, receive a share of the loot in
It is perhaps necessary to take a
return of enforcing economic policies
closer look at the composition of
that facilitates such plunder. When a
imperial capital of our time. In the era
community shows resilience and resists
of neo-colonialism, the identities of
its pauperization, armed forces are
neo-colonisers are also changing. It is
brought in to teach them a lesson. The
not only Citibank, Coca Cola or Rio
nexus of Essar, Vedanta, Man Mohan
Tinto which dictates the term today but
Singh and Mahendra Karma plans swift
so does Tata and Reliance, their
retribution in the form of Salwa Judum
geographical origin notwithstanding.
and Operation Green Hunt. This is the
However the emergence of monopoly
context in which current budget must
capital of Indian origin and its
be analyzed.
symbiotic relationship with
multinationals do not necessarily mean ‘Heinz’ing and unhinging of
that Indian capitalism has matured. On agriculture
the contrary, India is becoming a Let us first look at the agricultural
dependent entity of imperial capital by sector, which is, still, by far the largest
every passing day. Chhattisgarh sector in terms of employment. Almost
government, alone, has signed more 60 percent of Indian population is
than one hundred MoU’s in last few dependent on agricultural and allied
years and opened up its mineral activities for their survival. However,
resources for multinational one of most striking features of budgets
corporations. It is imperative for global in the recent past happens to be the
monopoly capital, for its own shrinking infrastructural expenditure in
sustenance, to ensure (ever expanding) this sector. Compared to 2008-09, in
absolute command over the means of 2010-11 government spending on
production – predominantly material agriculture has been cut by almost
objects of production such as land and 22%. The actual magnitude of cut is
mineral as well as labour. For instance, even more severe, if one adjusts for
if electricity is required for export the current inflation.
industry or production of automobiles This must be compared against a
for Indian rich then Kalinganagar 50% increase in the expenditure for
farmers must be evicted from their land energy sector and 25% increase in
to make way for power plants. In turn transport sector. Interestingly, energy
they will join the huge army of reserved sector has been privatised a few years
unskilled labourers which will keep ago and road transport is one of the
labour disciplined and cheap. Thus the few areas which are open to 100%
strategy of global capital is extremely foreign direct investment. Going back
simple: impose un-freedom on the to agricultural infrastructure, while 699
productive labour by denying them Crores have been allocated to irrigation
access to objects of production, which and flood management this year
gets concentrated in the hands of a few, compared to 609 Crores two years
so that dispossessed people become ago, corresponding figures for tourism,
entirely dependent on the monopoly which employs, even by a wild
capital for their survival. Local agents estimate, not more than 2% of the
of big multinational corporations, population, but essentially serves the
PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010 3
rich, are 762 Crores and 454 Crores
respectively.
To add to the misery of farmers,
recent years saw a huge increase in
input prices such as fertiliser and
electricity. Both these products are
now controlled by the private firms and
the government has taken no steps to
control prices. In fact, the new Nutrient
Based Subsidy policy for fertiliser is
nothing but a euphemism for complete
decontrol over prices. Effectively,
subsidy to fertiliser companies will
continue at the current level, however,
they will be free to charge any price
from the farmers. It is not difficult to
identify the beneficiaries of such policy
when we see that fertiliser import has
increased seven folds in last five years.
On the other hand, increase in input
prices will lead to further inflation.
Already price of food has increased
by 20%, inflation of some items such
as pulses, sugar and eggs are even
higher. This budget will only add to the
misery of working people and middle
class, while importers and speculators
will laugh all their way to banks.
The current budget is silent on the
issue of credit availability as well.
Between 1990 and 2003, lending to
agriculture as percentage of net bank
credit has shrunk from 16% to mere
10%. Farmers remained at the mercy
of informal moneylenders who charge
usurious interest rate resulting in suicide
of two Lakhs farmers since 1998.
Nothing has been proposed to rectify
such abysmal situation. The budget
proposes to recapitalize Rural Regional
Banks but no allocation has been
made specifically for this purpose. In
any case these regional banks have
remained in control of local semi-feudal
elements and are a major source of
corruption.
If we go beyond the rhetoric, it is
obvious that the budget lays foundation
for opening of retail trade in agriculture
to private sector. Incentives have been
offered for private ownership of cold
storage and food processing
4 PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010
industries. This is going to spell disaster
for millions of small and middle
farmers, landless workers and traders.
Big retail multinationals will force
wholesale and retail sellers out of the
market, thereby extending their
monopoly over procurement and sale
of all agricultural products including
essential items. Grain prices will be
controlled by importers, future traders,
big retailers and food processing
companies like Walmart and Heinz.
Working people have no other option
but to intensify their struggle against this
conspiracy of the multinationals and
their henchmen. When 25,000 farmers
participated in a rally in Punjab to
protest against high electricity prices,
police arrested their leaders in order
to crush the movement.
True origin of fiscal deficits
Finance Minister claimed that the
government has increased demand to
boost economy move out of recession
but this claim falls flat if one looks at
the expenditure figures. Expenditure
on employment and social welfare has
decreased in real terms and so has
expenditure on economic activities. So
the demand boost, if at all, could have
only originated from the tax-
exemptions handed out to rich and
corporations. Even according to the
government estimates, in 2009-10,
revenue forgone in corporate tax alone
(not including tax evasion through
financial juggleries) is a mammoth
80,000 Crores compared to 67,000
Crores in 2008-09. To put these figures
into perspective, government spends
about 30,000 Crores for education and
7,500 Crores for public health. It is
calculated that the effective tax rate for
corporate sector is 22%, well below
the statutory tax rate of 34%. Naturally
this comes at the expense of small
enterprises and working population.
The revenue forgone in customs duties
is even bigger; it has reached a
staggering 40% (25 thousand Crore)
of aggregate tax collection in 2009-10.
This budget fails to offer any solution
to this crisis. On the contrary, all sorts
of tax-breaks continued to be offered
to the rich, even new ones were
introduced while social expenditure
were slashed. For example, new tax
deductions were introduced on
investment in tourism, branded
jewellery and for the real estate sector,
while the allocation to Rural
Employment Guarantee Scheme,
which is the last resort of employment
generation in rural economy, has
decreased in real terms (nominal
increase by a ridiculous 2.5%). The
big beneficiaries of tax/duty
exemptions are mining, real estate and
exporters, who make a huge fortune
while the poor and middle class bears
the burden of high fiscal deficit. India’s
long term external debt has multiplied
seven folds since 1990 and it spends
5 % of its GDP on interest payment
and debt servicing. Under the pretence
of financing fiscal deficit, which at the
first place is caused by big business,
profit making Public Sector Units are
being sold to multinational
corporations. The current budget
commits itself to continue this process.
It is reported that 10% of Coal India,
one of the biggest producer of coal is
going to be sold very soon, while 8.4%
of NMDC, the largest producer of iron
ore has already been sold to private
sector. On top of that the state has also
found a new instrument of transferring
resources to private sector. In the name
of Private-Public Partnership in
infrastructural development, huge
public fund and land is being handed
over to monopoly capital at throw-
away rates. Energy and transport
sectors have witnessed several major
scams (for example, Ganga
expressway) through this channel.
Two faces of imperialism
This budget continues to dispossess
people instead of expanding their
control over resources as should be
the path of a true democratic society.
Whatever minimum control over
Contd..... on Page 10
 Dantewada: Biggest Ever Attack by PLGA Guerrillas
on the Paramilitary Forces who are Destroying
the Jal, Jangal, Jameen and Ijjat of the adivasis

Dantewada Attack is a Fitting Reply

to Chidambaram’s “Myth” of Operation Green Hunt

April 6, 2010 will go down in the history of the revolutionary war in India as a Red
Letter Day. It has become a day of great rejoicing for the millions of adivasi men, women
and children who had suffered decades of exploitation, oppression, humiliation and
suffering in the hands of the rapacious parasitic marauders who had robbed their jal,
jangal, jameen, destroyed their homes, shattered their lives, reduced them to the status of animals to be hunted and
killed at will by the licensed goondas hired by the state and by state-sponsored vigilante gangs. The indignities suffered
by these hapless adivasis in the hands of the outsiders are indescribable.
And more recently, after the launch of the countrywide coordinated unprecedented cruel armed offensive in the
name of Operation Green Hunt by the Congress-led UPA government, the plight of the adivasi masses had become even
more terrible. Over three hundred thousand people had to flee their homes and lands just to preserve their lives from the
murderous attacks by the beasts in uniforms that began to pour into their lands from all over the country on the orders
of Sonia-Manmohan-Chidambaram-Pranab gang. Behind the curtains, in the green room, are the Tatas, Mittals, Jindals,
Essar, Vedanta, POSCO and a host of other companies waiting to lay their hands on the tempting wealth the land of the
indigenous people beholds. And at the top of all, the No 1 Enemy of the world people and the most powerful, cruel and
savage beast in Washington directs this genocide in the heart of India assuring all assistance to its satraps in New Delhi.
In just Bastar alone, since August 2009, 114 adivasis had become unfortunate victims of this death hunt unleashed by
the imperialist and corporate vultures and the cunning jackals who represent them in the guise of various parliamentary
parties. Not one of these 114 adivasis murdered by the armed hooligans hired by the Indian State is a Maoist guerrilla.
Not one of them was in possession of any deadly weapon. Not one of them has any case in the court or is wanted even
on false criminal charges usually filed by the lawless anti-people police. Yet all these helpless adivasis became victims of
Chidambaram’s war in his so-called noble intention of reclaiming territory from the Maoists and make it a part of Shining
Bharat—the Bharat that shines with hourly suicides of farmers; the Bharat that shines with heart-rending deaths of
children due to unbearable pangs of hunger, malnutrition and disease; the Bharat that shines with 77 per cent of the
population eking out their existence with just Rs. 20 a day; the Bharat of the Hindu communal fascists who roam like
heroes committing murders of Muslims, Christians and whoever questions their fascist acts and have the full backing of
the Indian State; and a Bharat that shines on a handful of the filthy rich just seven of whom control wealth that exceeds
the combined total of 300 million Indians.
Starting with the brutal murders of Oyam Sagar, Pujari Pandral, Hapka Lingu, Tati Lakmu, Tati Aitu, Karam Somli in
Bijapur district on August 10, 2009 to the gruesome gang-rape and beheading of Kumili in Narayanpur district on
February 10, 2010, one is shocked, stunned and depressed at the sheer savagery and ghastliness exhibited by the
perpetrators of these inhuman crimes. One becomes more depressed because the perpetrators of these crimes against
humanity are men in uniform who are supposed to enforce the law and adhere to the Indian Constitution, on each of
whom millions of rupees of people’s money are spent for special training, and millions of rupees are paid when any of
them is killed in battle. While it is shock and depression for the observers, it is a struggle for survival for the adivasis. They
cannot survive without hitting back at these dacoits and savages who are looting their homes, burning their food grains
and belongings, murdering virtually everyone, raping their women, and abducting people and illegally detaining them for
indefinite periods.
That’s how and why the adivasis decided to bare their chests and dare the uniformed dacoits, murderers and rapists.
It is essential if they have to survive. That is why they rallied under the leadership of the CPI(Maoist) and joined the army
of the oppressed and suppressed people of the country—the PLGA—and made a firm resolve to die fighting in collective
PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010 5
armed resistance than die unarmed like
sheep and goats in the hands of these
murderers sent by the Indian State.
And that’s how and why Dantewada
erupted like a volcano reducing the
thieves and plunderers, rapists and
murderers to ashes. Dantewada’s rage
is the righteous indignation of an entire
people who are driven to the wall by
a mighty well-equipped murderous
force that represents the Indian state
and, due to which; there can never be
any hope of getting justice to the
hapless victims through the so-called
rule of law. The pain and anguish, the
unending sorrow, the tears of mothers
for their dead children and of children
for their dead mothers, the tears of
wives for their dead husbands and of
husbands for their dead wives, the tears
of sisters for their dead brothers and
of brothers for their dead or sexually
assaulted sisters, have all converged
into an irresistible rage that engulfed
the invading troops like a forest fire.
Those sitting in TV studios and in
A/c rooms and make their artificial and
speculative so-called news analyses
that is completely disconnected from
the stark realities can never understand
this forest fire, the pain and rage that
had transformed into a mighty counter-
offensive near Chintalnar in
Dantewada. Those who cannot think
beyond what happens in Metro cities
or a few major urban areas and are
engaged in packaging every trivial
event in the lives of celebrities or other
trash as news can never understand the
pain and anguish of the people that had
driven them to hack their tormentors
and murderers into pieces. Have those
who shed tears in TV studios and in
newspaper articles for those
paramilitary personnel who died in
Dantewada ever thought of those
unsung and unheard victims of the
brutal acts of these very “brave” men?
About the hundred and fourteen men,
women and children who had died at
the hands of these mercenary troops
without any hope of justice?
6 PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010
The stories of savagery that are
simply unimaginable in civilized
societies, stories of gruesome murders
and sexual assaults, abductions and
cruel tortures, destruction of homes
and shattering of lives are found again
and again at every place in the entire
adivasi-inhabited stretch of land as one
travels from Lalgarh to Surjagarh. And
that is why this entire belt, the so-called
Red Corridor, is seething with revenge
for the perpetrators of the worst crimes
against innocent unarmed people.
Dantewada ambush and wiping out of
an entire company of the CRPF is the
natural outcome of this fury for
revenge. With meticulous planning this
rage will transform into more such
daring attacks on the invading troops
of our Emperors in Delhi and their
Rajas in states.
No wonder, the people of the entire
country, particularly in the seven states
where Operation Green Hunt is
launched by the Central and state
governments—Chhattisgarh
(Dandakaranya), Jharkhand, Orissa,
West Bengal, Maharashtra, Bihar,
Andhra Pradesh—are enthusiastically
celebrating the daring Dantewada
attack by the PLGA and the
punishment given to the mercenary
forces of the Indian state. It is a day of
symbolic redemption for the families
of those abducted, tortured and
murdered by the paramilitary forces.
For the adivasi women who were
raped and sexually abused in manifold
ways by these uniformed hooligans, it
is a day of fulfilment of their long-felt
desire for revenge.
The stark contrast between the
prices of death of the uniformed
mercenaries on one hand and the poor
adivasi citizens on the other should
shock the country. Huge amounts to
the tune of four million rupees are paid
to the families of the police and
paramilitary jawans who die in the
hands of the Maoists and people; a job
is given to one member of their families;
and several other incentives. But what
about the poor adivasis who die in the
hands of the police and paramilitary
forces? What about the hundreds of
families of the poor innocent adivasis
who had been murdered in cold blood
by these mercenaries in uniform?
Almost all these families are left without
their breadwinner. They have nothing
to bank upon, their lands are snatched
away, houses are destroyed and many
are even dragged to court the transport
charges for which they simply cannot
afford. Why are no tears shed for these
hundreds of poor souls by our TV
anchors and media analysts? Why is
there so much of apathy and even
contempt for these children of India
that they do not even figure in the panel
discussions or analyses of all the
political analysts? It is this apathy and
contempt towards our own citizens by
the well-fed well-dressed gentlemen
and self-styled spokespersons for India
that is provoking even greater anger
and creating a feeling of alienation
among vast sections of poor destitute
masses. Those who talk of a moment’s
silence for the dead jawans and write
obituaries in papers, should search their
conscience (which most of these
“gentlemen” do not have anyway) and
question themselves why they did not
shed a drop of tear for the tragic deaths
(cold-blooded murders) of the adivasis
and Maoists when they died in much
larger numbers and in more horrifying
conditions. They should demand that
the ordinary adivasis who are killed
must be given adequate compensation,
and that the rulers should stop treating
adivasi deaths as deaths of flies while
those of the policemen and
paramilitary as invaluable for the
country.
Finally the biggest ever victory by
the heroic PLGA guerrillas led by the
CPI (Maoist) in Dantewada has
vindicated the superiority of the Maoist
principle of guerrilla war. By wiping
out an entire company of the highly-
trained CRPF battalions the PLGA has
opened a new chapter in the history
of the ongoing revolutionary war in
India. The paramilitary and the special
police forces, however much they are
trained in special schools of jungle
warfare set up for countering the
Maoists, at various counter-insurgency
warfare training institutes and by the
imperialist armies, they cannot win the
war against the people for the simple
fact that their very cause is unjust and
their war is predatory. The armed foot
soldiers sent to war front themselves
do not know why, what for, and even
against whom they are fighting. The
62nd battalion, to which the 75 dead
jawans including an assistant
commandant and a deputy
commandant belong, is one of the 24
battalions deployed in Chhattisgarh to
suppress the growing self-assertion of
the oppressed people, smash their
organs of revolutionary people’s
power, destroy their alternative models
of development, and to grab the entire
natural resources in this mineral-rich
region. It is also one of the 60
battalions sent by Chidambaram to
Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, West
Bengal, Bihar and Maharashtra to
carry out the genocide of adivasis. In
the current war thrust on the people
by the UPA government close to a
quarter of a million troops of the centre
and the states are engaged in
“recapturing” the area from the hands
of the Maoists and to hand it over to
the tiny parasitic class of comprador
corporates and imperialist MNCs. It
is a war between the overwhelming
majority of the impoverished people
on the one hand and the handful of
ever-fattening billionaires on the other.
By its successful daring surprise attack
in Dantewada basing on the invincible
Maoist principles of guerrilla war, the
PLGA had scored a major tactical
victory in the war despite the
superiority of the enemy in terms of
numbers and fire power.
The huge cache of highly
sophisticated arms and ammunition
seized from these mercenaries include
21 AK-47 rifles, six LMGs, seven
SLRs, one Stengun and other arms.
The tactical victory in Dantewada is a
fitting reply to Chidambaram’s
arrogance and boastfulness. And it has
nailed his shameless naked lie that the
brutal Operation Green Hunt is a myth
invented by the media.
The Dandakaranya Special Zonal
Committee, in a press release after the
Dantewada ambush explained why the
operation was undertaken. It stated that
the counteroffensive was to mark the
centenary of the Bhumkal Adivasi
rebellion and to send a message to
Chidambaram to halt his blood-bath in
the name of Operation Green Hunt. It
said the ambush was a retaliation for
the mass killings of unarmed innocent
adivasis and rape of adivasi women.
The statement said that PLGA had lost
eight comrades in the daring operation
in which 300 guerrillas were involved
contrary to the claims by the police
officials that 1000 were involved. It
also said that no pressure mines or any
modern technology was used and the
CRPF Company was wiped out
through direct exchange of fire.
In short, the Dantewada ambush is
an inevitable logical outcome of the
unending terrible provocation by the
uniformed goondas sent by
Chidambaram and Raman Singh to the
adivasi areas to create a brutal reign
of terror. They have an unwritten
licence to abduct, torture, rape and
murder any adivasi or Maoist without
any questions being asked. This
dehumanization of the police and
paramilitary forces is consciously
encouraged by Chidambaram, Raman
Singh, Vishwa Ranjan and others,
notwithstanding their holy chants of
peace and ahimsa . Behind their
sophisticated-looking rhetoric lie the
raw, beastly, cannibalistic passions that
devour human beings for establishing
their absolute control over the
resources and lives of the people.
As a statement by the spokesperson
of the CPI (Maoist) has pointed out:
PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010
“Their vision goes no farther than
that of a local daroga, as aptly
pointed out by a JD(U)
spokesperson referring to
Chidambaram. And their tactics fare
no better than those of a street rowdy.
As long as their fascist mind-set
refuses to see the socio-politico-
economic roots of Naxalism and
continue to treat it as a disease or a
problem while the oppressed people
see it increasingly as a remedy and
a solution to their problems,
Dantewada-type attacks will
continue to take place at an even
greater frequency and intensity.”
Dantewada’s Tremors Shake
Delhi: ............What Went Wrong?
From the moment the news of the
daring Maoist ambush in Dantewada
began pouring in the entire political and
security establishment of the country
has become shaken to the very core.
The immediate aftermath of Dantewada
ambush witnessed tumultuous events:
the resignation offer and the humbling
of an arrogant Home Minister, the
intense infighting breaking out within the
Congress and other mainstream
parliamentary parties, the unending
blame game between various parties,
bureaucrats and various wings of so-
called “security forces”, the call for an
introspection of the failed tactics of
Chidambaram, shrill cries for bringing
in the Army and Air Force, and
hysteric calls for silencing dissent of
every kind and so on. The Dantewada
earthquake was so powerful that the
tremors were felt all over the country
not sparing any party or establishment.
“What went wrong?” was the
question on everyone’s lips.
“Something drastically went wrong”
wailed the Home Minister
Chidambaram but did not know what
went wrong. But what? None had any
satisfactory answer. Almost year of
intense meticulous planning had gone
into the making of Operation Green
Hunt. Several battalions of central
7
paramilitary forces, who have
considerable experience in dealing with
the insurgency in Kashmir had been
withdrawn and specially deployed in
Maoist areas. Even if millions of people
of our country are dying of starvation
and extreme deprivation, unlimited
funds were allotted to the states for the
modernization of the police forces,
intelligence agencies, rewards for the
informers, and so on. 40,000 men
from CRPF were trained by the Indian
Army in counter-insurgency. Special
commandos with names that could
change the very nature of the men like
Grey Hounds, Cobras, Jaguars,
Scorpions, and Hawks and so on were
given. Helicopters are provided to
evacuate any injured personnel
immediately and the best treatment is
provided. Yet, what went wrong? All
the military experts, retired intelligence
chiefs, chiefs of the defence services,
various paramilitary forces, DGPs and
ex-DGPs and the media men with the
police brains had all put together their
brains to find out what went wrong.
Now the time has come for bringing
in the Army and the Air Force, cried
out some who got paranoid that the
Maoists might come to their door-step
in no time. The daily news of ever-
increasing spread and intensity of the
people’s war—from a mere 60
districts to more than 220 districts
covering more than a third of the
country—is indeed frightening. And
had not the Home Secretary Gopal
Krishna Pillai predict that the Maoists
are capable of bringing down some
sectors of the Indian economy to their
knees? And that they are planning to
capture power in the entire country by
2050? The spectre of Maoism is giving
nightmares to those who have every
reason to fear. For these day-light
robbers, there is everything to lose—
their ill-gotten riches, their black money
tucked away in various foreign banks
and even spread out carelessly in their
own homes until today under a
government that they control. What
8 PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010
would happen if the Reds come to their blasted the entire strategy of
doorstep? The very thought of it sends Chidambaram as a failed strategy. He
shivers down the spines of the corrupt, held the government’s thoughtless
immoral, scamsters and mafia strategy as responsible for the death
gangsters. Hence the faster the Maoists of 76 CRPF personnel. That the
are bombed into extinction the better government had made the CRPF men
for Shining India. Any more delay will sitting ducks for the Naxals was a
bring the half-naked emaciated common refrain of several so-called
creatures from the other world crawling security experts and the media. And
all over your palaces demanding their when criticism of the strategy began
share in your Shining India. So bomb to surface within the Congress itself
them to save Shining India. Such Chidambaram drew up another trick
screams rent the air. 2050. Oh! My from his sleeve. RESIGNATION. He
God! Dantewada seems to be a step knew that Sonia and Man Mohan will
closer to it! So hurry up before it’s late.not accept it. In fact, the threat of
Chidambaram’s resignation drama resignation would subdue the criticism
and garner more support from within
An arrogant Chidambaram had
the party and others as well.
boasted just a day before the
At this hour of crisis for the rulers,
Dantewada ambush that things were
fast improving in Chhattisgarh and when Maoists have become a deadly
Maharashtra. And that the problem threat and a common enemy for all,
was more complex in Jharkhand, Bihar how can one relinquish the
and Orissa. In Lalgarh too, (a day responsibilities and run away. Such ran
before Dantewada) his boastful claim the logic of several parties that pledged
that the region was almost reclaimed unconditional support for
from the Maoists became an object of Chidambaram’s war. BJP had gone a
ridicule after a land-mine hit the central step further and said that resignation
forces at a place near Lalgarh just 5 of Chidambaram would “mean a
km from the place he was to have a victory for Naxals”. And with this logic
meeting with the West Bengal security it pledged all-out support to any moves
establishment. A 24-hour bandh call by by Chidambaram to curb the
the PCAPA too had crippled the “menace.”
administration and paralysed the three Nationalism, patriotism and jingoist
districts on the day of Chidambaram’s frenzy was whipped up a scale unheard
visit. That Lalgarh was as defiant as of since the Kargil war. “If this is a war,
ever and that the Maoists were in as so be it,” shot out a cornered
much control of the area as before Chidambaram. “This is a war against
became clear to all. India”, howled the saffron brigade.
And now after a day of his claim Raman Singh consoled Chidambaram
that all is well in the central war front that very soon things would be alright.
and that within 2-3 years the entire area There should be closer coordination
under the Maoists would be between the Centre and the states
“reclaimed” and that the “Maoist appealed Buddhadeb and his “Left”
menace” would be finished once for comrades. The Congress, BJP and the
all, Dantewada ambush hit him like a so-called Left seemed to unite as one
terrible earthquake. He had no answers to confront the Maoists leading the vast
for this massive and deadliest attack masses of the poor of India. Assured
by the Maoist revolutionaries in their of this expected support
Chidambaram ended his fake
entire history. “Something went
resignation drama and began his plans
drastically wrong,” was all he could
manage to mutter. There were stinging for the genocide. However, the
attacks from several quarters. KPS Gill contradictions and dog-fights within the
ruling classes do not allow such
smooth resolution of conflict. Even as
the central leadership of the BJP was
pledging all-out support to the
Congress and Chidambaram in their
war against Maoists, the Congress
opposition in Chhattisgarh were
demanding the resignation of BJP’s
Raman Singh for his total failure in
protecting the lives of the jawans. A
24-hr bandh was called by the
Congress in Chhattisgarh in protest
against the state government’s policies
that had led to the great debacle in
Dantewada. The intensification of the
people’s war would further aggravate
intra- and inter-ruling class
contradictions.
Butcher Vishwa Ranjan thundered
that revenge will be taken, more
Maoists would fall to his “brave” forces
and that the tide would turn very soon.
Like a street rowdy he howled that the
body count would soon be reversed.
For he knows achieving it is very
simple. At least a few hundred poor
adivasis are in illegal detention of his
mercenary forces. Just dress them in
Maoist uniforms, bump them off and
claim to have killed so many Maoists
in fierce encounters. That is the secret
behind his confident assertion that
Maoists will lose more of their men
within a short time. Ever since the start
of Operation Green Hunt that was how
he and his blood-thirsty forces had
managed to show to the world that their
casualties were lower than those of the
Maoists. By showing 114 innocent
adivasis as Maoists this fraud DGP
imagined that he could fool the world.
But how can these white lies boost the
sagging morale of his forces who know
that all these were nothing but cold-
blooded murders? Fascists have no
shame. And like every fascist in history
Vishwa Ranjan too does not bother if
he becomes a laughing stock through
his naked lies.
Oppressed people led by the
Maoists will defeat the brutal anti-
people Operation Green Hunt
That Maoists, with the active
participation and support of the
people, will emerge victorious in this
war is a foregone conclusion. The
reason is simple. Maoists are fighting
a just war. They are waging a People’s
War. They are fighting against
extremely corrupt, rapacious, anti-
people exploiting classes and their
‘democratic’ system that is rotten to
the core. Maoists enjoy tremendous
support of the masses. They are loved
by the people who protect them as the
apple of their eye, provide them food,
funds, logistical support and
information about enemy movements.
It is the people who had ensured the
astounding success of Maoists in
Dantewada. It is the people who
warned the Maoists about the
movements of the paramilitary and
police forces. It is the people who
actually participated in every operation
carried out by the Maoists against the
enemy. For it is the people who need
to end this brutal war by throwing out
those who are waging war. They know
that if the police and paramilitary
succeed in defeating the Maoists then
their entire lives would become a
veritable hell. Forest officials,
contractors, bureaucrats, mining
companies and outside traders and
landlords would once again start
treating them like dust. The people
would never want to go back to the
previous hell. That is why they would
fight to finish. There is no question of
surrendering to the threats of the
reactionary rulers. We will die fighting
rather than die without a fight like lambs
or sheep. This is the motto of the
adiavsis.
For Maoists the adivasi area is their
home. No other than a senior police
officer himself had brought out this
fact: “The Maoists know every tree in
the forest, and even how many
branches are on a tree.” Can a bunch
of mercenaries hired for fighting a war
which is not theirs and who does not
know for what and for whom, and why
PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010
they are fighting in the first place defeat
the Maoists who are ideologically
motivated, familiar with the terrain and
local language and culture, and deeply
rooted among the masses?
Chidambaram’s men do not even
know against whom they are fighting.
When the Maoists are indistinguishable
from the people then how and with
whom would they fight? These are
stark and simple things discernible to
the naked eye though not to those who
want to execute the war at any cost.
Then there are other things like the
problem of language and
communication with the local
population, inhospitable terrain, deadly
Malaria, insects and reptiles which the
media had reported as cited by some
jawans, lack of clean drinking water
(ironically the media and security
experts shed tears at the hardships
faced by these men to fetch water from
2-3 Kilometres away from their camps
but say nothing about how poor
adivasis had been living for decades
in these conditions), lack of food,
scorching heat in summer and with all
this the growing discontent and
frustration among the state’s forces as
they hear through media reports on
scams in purchase of bullet-proof
jackets and other life saving
equipments. It will not take long before
these forces realize that they are being
used as cannon-fodder in a war waged
in the interests of a handful of
imperialist companies and the Indian
corporate business houses.
Desertions, disobedience, refusal to
join duty are already a growing feature
as several reports indicate. This will
soon grow into an alarming
proportion. How will Chidambaram
and his gang of predatory war-
mongers achieve their aim of grabbing
the mineral wealth of these regions in
the heart of India?
Now is the time for all peace-loving,
democratic-minded citizens of the
country to rise up as one voice and
9
demand an immediate end to the brutal Contd..... from Page 16
counter-revolutionary predatory war
Survey-III (NFHS-III). Of the total deaths over the four-year period from 2005-
waged by a handful of corporate
06 to 2008-09, around 13 per cent deaths were reported only from
vultures for plundering the resources
of our country? Let us use all means Bundelkhand.
at the disposal of the people of our The question any ordinary citizen would ask fraud Chidambaram is: where is
country to isolate, expose, oppose your development programme for these regions where naxalites are almost
and militantly resist the heinous absent and 60 per cent of children are suffering from malnutrition? When you
attempts of the reactionary rulers and cannot provide even food and drinking water to the vast majority of children
their imperialist backers. Let us declare what trash you are yelling everyday at the top of your voice that you would
war on this fake democratic system develop the regions under Maoist control after reclaiming these by using your
which is rotten to the core that feeds brute force? Don’t fool the people with your disgusting chatter and endless lies,
itself by waging a cruel unjust war on Mr. Fraud! First do something for these dying children if you have an iota of
the people. If the rulers do not heed concern for people instead of territory. But you wouldn’t because you are “in
the saner voices and continues its a state of denial for too long” to put it in your own words. You have been
foolhardy quixotic and fascist venture deprived of the minerals and forest wealth in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa,
then what more can the people do than Maharashtra, West Bengal and other states due to the Maoist “threat”. Your
create more Dantewadas all over the war is not for development of the regions and people’s lives but for the loot and
country? PM plunder of the mineral wealth of the regions where your capitalist masters have
been denied entry by the ever-growing mighty Maoist movement. PM
Contd..... from Page 19
The prolonged occupation is also taking its toll on Hindu how she struggled to fit fifty girls in two rooms and a
students. In Kerlapal, the CRPF’s occupation of the senior veranda after the 195th Battalion of the CRPF moved into
school building has forced students of Classes XI and XII the girls’ hostel. “I stacked the beds one above the other
to study in the sheltered veranda. “There are no chairs with the younger grils on top and the elder girls at the
and the students are constantly distracted,” said a teacher. bottom,” she said. The girls have since been moved to a
“The black board is makeshift, making it difficult for both permanent location. Now there are three rooms for fifty
teachers and students.” Class IX students have been girls, an outdoor toilet without doors and no water.
accommodated in the middle school building by moving At a bus stand in Narayanpur, troops returning from
Class VI into a poorly-ventilated equipment shed. This was leave wait for a bus to take them to their camps located in
supposed to be a temporary arrangement; it has been five schools on the Orcha road. “I used to have an open mind,”
years. read a T-shirt sported by a soldier. “But my brains kept
In Bhusaras, Dantewada, a hostel warden told The falling out.” PM
Contd. From..... Page 4
resources people had within a being uprooted from their villages to growth of defence expenditure. In
modicum of welfare state are being make way for mining, controlled by 2009, India spent a massive 141
eroded systematically. For instance, multinational corporations. People are thousands Crore in defence, which was
profit making public sector firms are getting alienated from their livelihood, 30 percent higher than the previous
being divested; robbing people of much forest and land, to serve as fodder of year. As the chasm between the ruling
needed revenue that runs essential global capital. Thus Operation Green classes and the masses is widening up
services such as public distribution Hunt and Union budget, both serve at a fast pace, to curb the rising
system (no wonder that the imperial interest, one through brute discontent of the masses ruling classes
government plans to dismantle the force and the other under a veil of are spending fanatically on arms and
public distribution system completely constitutional legality. ammunitions. However, from
within next two years). This lays the Securing the ‘nation’ against Chhattisgarh to Manipur people have
foundation of a society where people its own people started raising their voices against the
are left to the mercy of global capital. imperial capital and its Indian agents.
The same story is unfolding today in Last but not the least important One day, perhaps sooner than later, it
Chhattisgarh as well where people are aspect of this budget is a phenomenal is bound to grow into a chorus.
PM
10 PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010
 “Maoists are cowards! Why are they hiding in the forests?”—Union Home
Minister Chidambaram during his Lalgarh visit.
Adivasis have the last laugh at the abysmal ignorance of this English-speaking
“gentleman” about the forests of India.
During his visit to Lalgarh on April
4, Union Home Minister Chidambaram
once again revealed his absolute
disconnect with India’s ground realities.
It was the adivasis who had the last
laugh at the ignorance of the man who
heads the most important post of
internal security about the dwelling
places of almost 90 million Indian
people. By saying that Maoists are
hiding in the forests this agent of the
corporate sharks revealed his
ignorance of the fact that forests are
home to the indigenous people of India
and that Maoists had become a part
of these people ever since they began
their revolutionary war in the country
to liberate it from the clutches of the
imperialists, feudal forces and the
comprador bureaucratic capitalist
class.
Chidambaram began his brutal war
on the adivasi people and the Maoists
who lead them without even having the
basic knowledge that the Maoist
movement has begun to grow by
organizing the most marginalized
sections of the Indian society who live
in these forested regions. That for over
four decades Maoists have mingled
and integrated with the adivasis of these
forests like fish in water, married the
adivasis, took on their names, and
adapted themselves to the conditions
in these forests. For Chidambaram, it
appears, forests are some picnic
places, or holiday resorts where
people like him can spend time
peacefully reading books as he had
expressed in an interview to a TV
channel sometime ago. For him forests
are uninhabitable places or places
where human habitation should be
dismantled completely. For him these
are regions waiting to be exploited of
their mineral and forest wealth by the
greedy outsiders. That is why he had
unleashed the brutal Greed Hunt to
exterminate the indigenous people and
pave the way for the plunder of the
natural resources by the tiny class of
parasitic corporate elites that he
represents.
How fit is a man who poses the
question why the Maoists are hiding in
the forests for the job he is supposed
to handle is a thing that his reactionary
political class has to decide.
By abusing Maoists as cowards
Herr Chidambaram reveals the crude
impulses lurking behind his seemingly
sophisticated looks. In the inverted
world of this man just about everything
looks upside down. Bravery is
cowardice and cowardice is bravery.
That which exists materially need not
exist for this man. And that which
doesn’t exist in reality can be created
from thin air. That’s the greatness of
our magician Chidambaram.
Even when the entire world knows
and acknowledges the fact of his
Operation Green Hunt this man hasn’t
the courage to accept its existence.
What better example of cowardice can
one cite than his incessant denial of
something that is in front of our eyes?
And how does this inventor of new
definitions of established words see
bravery? He thinks it is “bravery” if a
dozen unarmed adivasis in Gompad
are caught and murdered by mortar-
bearing, LMG-wielding paramilitary
forces sent by him to Chhattisgarh. He
thinks it is the “bravery” of his
policemen when they mercilessly cut
off the breasts of a 70-year-old woman
or chop off the fingers of a two-year-
old child. Or sexually assault poor
PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010
hapless adivasi women and murder
them in cold blood. Or his gun-toting
mercenaries bravely steal pigs, hens,
goats and the property of the adivasis.
He thinks it as “bravery” when his
CRPF men hide in the darkness like
thieves, catch hold of an unarmed
popular mass leader like Lalmohan
Tudu, and murder him secretly. Herr
Chidambaram himself reveals his own
“bravery” by claiming in public that
Tudu was killed in retaliation by the joint
patrol party when it was attacked by
the Maoists. With his new definition of
bravery no wonder, this Nazi avatar
yells at the “cowardice” of the Maoists
who had given up their families, jobs,
property and whatever they had and
chose to live among the most deprived
sections of society—the adivasis in the
remote forests—and are prepared to
become martyrs for the cause of the
oppressed.
Why is Herr Chidambaram
speaking such language? This is
important to understand so as to
understand how the war will be waged
under his stewardship. Herr
Chidambaram’s Nazi outbursts reveal
the fascist culture of the neo-liberal
rulers of India. It is the language of not
just Chidambaram but that of a Jayanti
Natrajan, an Arun Jaitley, a Chandan
Mitra, a Buddhadeb, an Arnab
Goswamy, Sapan Das Gupta and all
the neo-liberal apologists whatever be
their colour. Chidambaram and this
neo-liberal gang know that Maoists are
not hiding in the forests. They know
that Maoists have mingled with the
adivasis like fish in water. They know
that Maoists are the only capable force
who can lead the adivasis in their just
war against the worst forms of
exploitation and oppression
11
perpetrated by the plunderers and Chidambaram has taken the his time-frame indefinite. Such is the
thugs whom men like Chidambaram Operation Green Hunt as his personal mental frame of this blue-eyed boy of
politically represent. They know that prestige issue despite his desperate the imperialists and the Indian
their class can never lay its hands on attempts to deny its very existence all corporate houses. However, all his
the forest resources without defeating along not even realizing that he has assessments and expectations are
the Maoists. But when the Maoists are become a laughing stock through such turning upside down. Two days after
deeply entrenched and embedded white lies. He has been reassuring the war-mongering hawks in the Union
among the adivasi masses, when it is himself that he would wipe out the Home Ministry had declared that most
impossible to eliminate the Maoists Maoists before he completes his of Lalgarh has been reclaimed came
without exterminating the adivasis, tenure. However, every Maoist the land-mine blast by the Maoists
Chidambaram’s dilemma deepens. His success and the resultant defeat of close to the place where Chidambaram
hesitation is not because of any moral Chidambaram’s mercenary forces is was to address a meeting. Then the
consideration. He would not hesitate driving him towards a state of insanity people of Jangalmahal issued a call for
to throw a few bombs and destroy the and depression. Thus his claims about 24-hour bandh of the entire region to
entire forest population along with the the time-frame for the State’s decisive protest against Chidambaram’s visit
Maoists. If only the civil rights groups victory over the Maoists range and the police atrocities against
and democratic intellectuals minded anywhere from 2-3 years to an innocent people. The desperate
their own business, how easy his job indefinite period depending on which attempts by Chidambaram to woo the
would have been! How much can one side seemed to be scoring successes people of Lalgarh came to naught with
Arnab help him in his mission of at a given point of time. hardly anyone turning up to meet him
extermination? Especially when his Chidambaram’s behavior is like that of or responding to his quixotic call to
arguments have become schoolboy’s a hysterical schoolboy watching a boycott the Maoists. Having little
jokes! Or how much help can a few sports match who goes into bouts of interaction with Indian reality this
sarkari and police intellectuals who depression and ecstasy depending on megalomaniac has begun to lose his
have no appeal or credibility in the the progress of the match. A minor sanity and hence has changed the very
society render? If not for this growing success or what has been perceived vocabulary of what constitutes
public opposition to his crazy as a success basing on false claims by cowardice and bravery. With the
megalomaniacal war plans, this neo- the officers in the field would throw further intensification of the people’s
Nazi Indian avatar would have turned Chidambaram into a bout of ecstasy war all the dreams of Chidambaram
entire regions of central and eastern and jumps to the conclusion that he will collapse like a pack of cards and
India into graveyards by now. This would finish off the Maoists within 2-3 he will either end up in a lunatic asylum
“brave” man has not abandoned his years. Which he did after murdering or will be punished in the people’s
pet project of using overwhelming comrade Shakhamuri Appa Rao, court before his tenure ends. Will he
military force and air power to reduce Kondal Reddy in Andhra Pradesh and realize and mend his ways and end the
entire regions into rubble. That’s how hoping that comrade Kishenji might unconstitutional attacks by his armed
he receives his daily briefings from his have died or seriously injured in the paramilitary forces on the people? Or
masters in the Washington who have March 24 encounter. One big success get pushed into the dust-bin of history?
been doing it in Iraq, Afghanistan and on the part of the Maoists would make
PM
Pakistan today.
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12 PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010

 The Food Security Bill—a Bizarre Drama
and a big hoax played by the UPA government on hungry stomachs.
Universal Public Distribution System is the need of the day, not a few doles.
The so-called Food Security Bill,
the draft of which the Finance Minister
Pranab Mukherjee had promised to
place before the public very soon in
the course of his Budget speech in end
February, is yet to see the light of the
day. What is amusing, however, is the
endless speculation in the media about
the supposed struggle of Sonia Gandhi
against the other leaders in the
Congress on the issue and her
disapproval of the draft prepared by
the Empowered Group of Ministers
(EGoM) headed by Finance Minister
Pranab Mukherjee on the ground that
it falls short of the requirements as it
has not taken a comprehensive picture
of poverty in the country.
The draft bill that was returned to
its authors—the EGoM—has reduced
the monthly quota of food for a poor
family from 35 kg to 25 kg, has no
nutritional security, no provision for the
homeless, and has even downsized the
number of BPL families in a cavalier
manner. It does not provide for cash
transfer through food coupons. And it
has also kept enough legroom to
increase the issue price of cheap grains
from the current Rs. 3 a kg. Harsh
Mander, the Supreme Court-appointed
commissioner on food security said:
“The Bill absolutely needs rework. It
has reduced the notion of food right
to virtually nothing.” To put in a
nutshell, the draft food security bill
is a mere eye-wash and a Himalayan
fraud played on the poor of this
country. If passed it would create
more food insecurity for the poor.
The Congress had promised in its
poll manifesto “a right to food law that
guarantees access to sufficient food
for all, particularly the most
vulnerable sections of society.” But
through the food security bill, which it
is contemplating to introduce almost
after completing one year in office, the
Congress has made a complete
mockery of its poll promise. The draft
bill has not only repackaged the
existing so-called poverty alleviation
schemes but has also drastically
reduced the benefits which the poor
had been getting earlier. In some states
rice is provided to around three-
quarters of the population at Rs. 2 a
kilo. The Congress-authored draft bill
reduces the number of households,
increases the issue price to Rs. 3 a
kilo, and also reduces the quota
supplied to each household! Thus it
has tried to snatch away even what
the poor have been getting until now.
It had gone back on its promise of
providing 35 kg a month by eating up
10 kg.
How many Indians are Poor?
To place such a question even after
62 years of so-called Independence
displays the utter callousness of the
criminal rulers and their contempt for
the toiling millions on whose sweat and
blood they live like parasites. The
EGoM headed by Pranab Mukherji
could not even get the correct number
of the below-poverty-line (BPL)
families which is decided on the basis
of 13 socio-economic parameters,
including calorie intake and income.
The official approach to head count
of the poor in our country has always
been to play down the number through
sheer jugglery of the worst kind.
According to the government
estimates approximately a third of our
country’s population is absolutely
poor. According to the Suresh
Tendulkar committee, 37.2 per cent of
Indians qualify as poor. But the
Planning Commission deliberately
brought the number down to 27.2 per
cent. Another estimate from the state
governments puts the figure at 10.52
PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010
crore or 45 per cent of the population.
But if one takes other indicators that
other countries take, the number will
be even greater. For instance, the
number of undernourished constitute
over 60 % of the population even
according to official statistics. If one
takes basic housing, health care,
sanitation, and other minimum
necessities that are taken for granted
in other countries the number of the
poor goes much higher than what the
government or other committees
estimate. The so-called food security
bill does not take these factors into
consideration when calculating the
BPL. Sections such as rag pickers,
construction workers, street vendors,
cycle rickshaw drivers, domestic
workers, and several other wretched
of the earth do not find a place in the
BPL category of our Pranab
Mukherjee-led Committee.
Bizarre Drama
What is amusing in this entire bizarre
drama enacted by the Congress vis-à-
vis India’s hungry and undernourished
bloated bellies is its damage-control
exercise sought to be done in the name
of its party High Command and the de
facto head of the government, Sonia
Gandhi. A Media hype is consciously
built around the so-called pro-poor
approach of Sonia as opposed to
others in the Congress leadership. The
draft bill was said to have been sent
back to the same EGoM for redrafting
after Sonia’s supposed disapproval.
This is a despicable ploy employed by
every parliamentary party to save its
face when confronted by sharp
criticism. Thus we have a Prime
Minister Vajpayee intervening to
reassure the Muslims and Christians
while his BJP and other saffron
gangsters were threatening to decimate
the religious minorities or intervening
13
to curtail some harsh economic
burdens imposed on the people by his
own government. We have a Prakash
Karat and a Yechuri trying to re-
interpret the policies of Buddhadeb
and trying to pose themselves as
favouring a non-military solution to the
Naxal issue even as Buddhadeb
unleashes a gruesome armed onslaught
against the adivasis and the Maoists in
West Bengal. We have a Sonia Gandhi
who intervenes to bring down the
burden on the people after the steep
hike in fuel prices by her own Union
Cabinet. And now her intervention in
reworking on the food security bill to
make it more humane!
All these are nothing but cruel jokes
played on hungry stomachs by the
criminal rulers. And the media builds
up hype around these leaders and
plays up the petty concessions to
create illusions among the people that
everything would be fine under a
Sonia. That was how the image of an
Indira Gandhi was built up in a planned
manner. Nothing was wrong with
Indira Gandhi or her policies. It was
her sycophants, the bureaucrats and
those who were to implement these
policies and schemes further down who
were at fault. So went the logic. Now
Sonia is projected as the human face
of the Congress. She would act as the
last reserve for a failed party. Thus the
party would collectively initiate an anti-
people measure, gauge its impact on
the people, and then would tone it
down if needed by bringing Sonia into
the scene as a messiah. Eventually both
the Congress and Sonia stand to gain
while people are reduced to fools.
How 800 Million Live
The facts regarding hunger and
poverty in India are startling and
expose in all nakedness the emptiness
of the innumerable promises made by
the hypocritical, opportunist
parliamentary parties in over six
decades of rule.
The total number of undernourished
14
persons has increased form 210 million
in 1990-92 to 252 million in 2004-06.
India has about half the population of
world’s undernourished children.
What is worse, there has been a
general decline in calorie consumption
in recent decades.1 The percentage of
children below five years of age who
are underweight is now 42.5 per cent.
The percentage of children below three
years who are undernourished is 40
per cent. 2
The callousness and contempt for
the poor on the part of our rulers can
be seen from their desperate gimmicks
and heinous attempts to cover up the
reality of poverty. One can recollect
the statistical jugglery resorted to by
Rajiv Gandhi during the second half of
1980s to lower the number of poor
and hungry. These heinous attempts
continue notwithstanding the hype built
around his widow who controls the
government de facto. The worst
examples of this callousness are the
Union Home Minister Chidambaram
and the Finance Minister Pranab
Mukherjee, who had been desperately
trying to cover up the stark figures of
the poor behind their sophisticated
(which is in fact abysmally crude
notwithstanding their flawless English)
rhetoric. Both these anti-people
Ministers had gone on record saying
that the figures of the poor cited by
various authentic researchers are a
myth.
According to a report in The Hindu
of March 28, 2010, Union Home
Minister Chidambaram and Finance
Minister Pranab Mukherjee described
as ‘myth’ the perception that 77 per
cent of Indian people lived on Rs. 20
a day. Chidambaram said that Arjun
Sengupta report had not derived such
a conclusion. Pranab Mukherjee,
delivering the valedictory address at
the ‘National Convention on Law,
Justice and the Common Man’
organized by the All India Congress
Committee in New Delhi, said three
studies conducted on the extent of
PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010
poverty in India have arrived at
different conclusions based on different
sample surveys they have used to
determine how many people were
living below the poverty line. The terms
of reference of these committees were
narrow, affecting the conclusion.
Chidambaram said the Left parties in
West Bengal were propagating the
myth that 77 per cent of the people
had an income of only Rs. 20 a day. 3
No wonder, the so-called Empowered
Group of Ministers (E-GOM) headed
by Pranab Mukherjee had created
more insecurity for the poverty-
stricken masses of our country through
their draft food security bill.
The strong opposition from several
civil society groups and social activists
had prompted the Congress leadership
to redraft the Bill to make it more
palatable for the critics and the people
at large. Even if it is merely on paper!
None would believe that anything good
can come out of this Bill for the vast
majority of the undernourished, hungry
millions who are dying like flies even
as the government claims of surplus
food stocks in its godowns. And stark
irony is over several million tonnes of
food grains rot in the godowns due to
criminal apathy and neglect of our
rulers who exhibit nothing short of
contempt for the poor of this country
in whose name they had catapulted to
power. Why are these rogues
maintaining criminal silence when
millions of children are going hungry
and are dying in hundreds every day?
What would make these criminals
jerk out of their inertia and tale
measures to distribute the rotting
food grains from their godowns? And
when the pathetic plight of the poor
is getting worse with every passing
day why are these criminals
contemplating on increasing the
budget for police, paramilitary,
defence forces and spend huge sums
for waging war on these very people?
One has to grasp this fascist mindset,
anti-people attitude and criminal
contempt for the people of this country
on the part of the reactionary rulers.
Nothing short of a revolutionary
overthrow of these criminals ruling the
country in the name of the people and
fake democracy can eradicate poverty
and ensure food security for all.
Bogus welfare schemes only fatten
the rich
The fact that 230 million people of
our country virtually go to bed hungry
every day shows how bogus are the
so-called social welfare schemes
pompously trumpeted by the
successive governments. And the aam
aadmi rhetoric brings nausea to
anyone who witnesses the terrible
tragedy afflicting such a huge
population that is equal to the entire
population of the United States or the
combined population of entire Europe.
Every government has introduced
these schemes which mean nothing to
the people of this country except death
and destitution. Schemes with
pompous sounding names such as
Integrated Child Development Services
(ICDS), the Kishori Shakti Yojana, the
Nutrition Programme for Adolescent
Girls, the Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for
Empowerment of Adolescent Girls of
the Ministry of Women and Child
Development; the Sarva Siksha
Abhiyaan and the Mid-Day Meals
Programme of the Ministry of Human
Resources Development; the National
Rural Health Mission and the National
Urban Health Mission, Rashtriya Krishi
Vikas Yojana, National Food Security
Mission and the National Horticulture
Mission of the Union Agriculture
Ministry; the Rajiv Gandhi Drinking
Water Mission, the Total Sanitation
Campaign, the Swarna Jayanthi Gram
Swarajgar Yojana, and the Mahatma
Gandhi National Rural Employment
Guarantee Programme of the Ministry
of Rural Development; and the
Antyodaya Anna Yojana, Annapoorna
and the Targeted Public Distribution
system of the Ministry of Food, and
such grandiose schemes with the
avowed aim of improving the nutritional
status. Then why has hunger increased
by leaps and bounds? And why do
children eat mud in Ganne village in
Uttar Pradesh as reported in the
Hindustan Times?4
It is futile to debate whether a Sonia
has greater concern for the hungry
millions of the country and about the
so-called struggle between Sonia and
other leaders in the Congress party.
The irony of the situation is that our
politicians and analysts continue to
grapple with the “problem” of defining
poverty and counting the poor. Sitting
in their A/c rooms these ivory tower
intellectuals can never understand the
excruciating hunger and the pangs of
poverty. Hence the debate goes on
even after six decades of fake
independence whether the numbers
given by a certain committee are
correct and whether those of another
committee are a myth, and so on. The
official approach appears to be restrict
support to BPL families.5 Hence we
have the tragic case of children of
Ganne village eating mud while their
family earning Rs. 400 a month
disqualifies for the BPL category! The
number of BPL families varies from
9.25 crore (Suresh Tendulkar
Committee) to 20 crore (Justice D.P.
Wadhwa Committee). Taking four
persons as the average size of a family,
we have 37 crore to 80 crore people
coming under BPL.
Food security involves safe drinking
water, sanitation and health care. But
the rulers have little concern for the
provision of clean drinking water,
sanitation or health care to the villages
but are more interested in the
construction of four-lane roads,
Expressways, passing through these
PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010
villages. Their concern is more about
how to transport the mineral and forest
wealth from these regions, speed up
the transport of raw materials and
finished commodities across the
country for obtaining super profits for
the corporate business houses and for
the imperialists abroad. Thus we have
the strange paradox of absolute non-
availability of drinking water, toilets
and primary health centre in a village
but an ultra-modern highway passing
through it with mineral water bottles
being sold at the nearby dhaba.
What does it cost the government
to provide the basic necessities to the
poor of this country? Only a small
fraction of the enormous profits
amassed by the landed gentry and the
comprador capitalist class—not an
impracticable task given the huge sums
accruing to a handful of ever-bulging
billionaires in our country. In fact, in
2006, the National Commission on
Farmers in its recommendations on
building a sustainable nutrition security
system calculated that about 60 million
tonnes of food grains will be needed
to sustain a universal PDS. What is
required for the BPL families is only
some additional cash expenditure to
meet the lower prices of food grains
allotted for them. People of the country
should agitate for a Universal PDS
along with subsidized rations for those
coming under BPL. It is estimated that
food stocks with the government
would touch 60 million tonnes by June
2010.6 But they would only rot in
godowns just like the system which
produces them.
1—MS Swaminathan ‘Pathway to food
security to all’, The Hindu,
2—Ibid
3—The Hindu, March 28, 2010
4—Hindustan Times, April 5, 2010
5—MS Swaminathan
PM
15
 Why can’t Chidambaram’s development bogey
reach out to these people?

Save the dying children before dreaming of

bringing development to remote regions
under Maoist control through Operation Green Hunt

One lakh twenty two thousand four hundred and twenty

two is the number of “malnutrition-affected” children who have
died in Madhya Pradesh over the past four years, according
to Health Minister Anup Mishra’s confession in the State
Assembly in the third week of February. Shivraj Singh Chouhan
of the BJP, who rules the state, had dubbed the reports by independent human rights organizations as a myth and
invention just as the Congress’s Home Minister Chidambaram denies as myth his Operation Green Hunt. After repeated
denials of several independent human rights reports over the past one year, the BJP government in MP finally admitted
that with 60 per cent children affected, malnutrition is a major problem in the state. The Minister admitted that 60 per
cent of the children in the State are suffering from malnutrition, confirming the figures stated in the National Family Health
Contd..... on Page 10

16 PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010

 New concrete structures for the police
and paramilitary in the guise of Schools
How long will Chidambaram’s Paramilitary forces
deprive children of their education?
Presently, school buildings in
remote rural regions, particularly the
adivasi-inhabited regions, are being
constructed at a pace unheard of in the
post-1947 history of our country. It
looks as if the ruling classes of India
had suddenly become extremely
benevolent towards the educationally
most backward sections of our
society—the adivasis. Incredible
indeed! For education has always
been the most neglected sector in the
annual budgets of the states and the
union government. How have the
rulers become so much generous
towards the children of our country,
particularly in the adivasi regions?
Wherefrom comes this new-found love
for the most deprived sections of our
society?
The facts related to the condition
of the children in our country are
bizarre, to say the least. A significant
number of children in the remote rural
areas are dying like flies due to extreme
malnutrition and disease owing to lack
of food and drinking water. The adivasi
population, constituting over 8 crore
that is equivalent to the population of
Germany or the combined population
of Canada, Australia, New Zealand
and Argentina, has no access to safe
drinking water. Worse till, instead of
providing them with safe drinking
water, the successive governments in
states and the Centre, whatever the
colour of the ruling regimes—khadi,
saffron, red, yellow and so on—had
only snatched even the hitherto
available water from these hapless
people. Most of the sources of
drinking water are rendered unsafe for
drinking by the pollution of rivers and
streams by the imperialist MNCs, the
corporate business houses, and the
Public Sector projects set up by the
GOI in the name of mining and
development. This has made the
condition of the children, in particular,
most vulnerable since they become
easily affected by diarrhoea and other
water-borne diseases.
A significant chunk of the children
from the rural areas is compelled to or
lured into work as bonded labourers
in sweat shops and many even go
begging in the streets. Most of the
existing schools have no adequate
number of teachers, or where teachers
are appointed they rarely visit their
schools. The teachers are often
compelled to go on strike just to get
their salaries which are denied to them
for several months by the village
panchayats and state governments. A
visit to the adivasi villages in several
parts of the country where Maoists
have hardly any presence shows that
the schools are generally not functional,
teachers are rarely found, and the
buildings are used for purposes other
than education. And where schools are
said to function one can count the
single-digit attendance of children.
Owing to acute poverty prevailing
among most households the children
in these villages are seen as sources of
income and domestic help rather than
make them obtain school education.
When the condition of our children
and our schools is as described above,
why do our Man Mohan Singh,
Chidambaram sahib and all their ultra-
modern “developers” derive
satisfaction and succour from their
“benevolent acts” of school
construction while not caring an iota
for providing drinking water or address
the problem of pathetic malnutrition
prevalent in vast adivasi-inhabited
areas? What is the secret behind this
hectic developmental activity by the
various governments in a region that
had witnessed only callous apathy and
criminal negligence for over six decades
by the Indian rulers? Even now when
PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010
the adivasis have to walk for 30 km to
show to even a namesake doctor and
most die of lack of treatment, why are
our Man Mohan Singhs and
Chidambarams interested more in
constructing school buildings, rather
than primary health centres, in these
regions?
The very sight of a school building
in these areas is enough to grasp the
secret behind this “benevolent” and
“humanitarian” venture. The cement
buildings with RCC roofs and solid
walls hang out as islands in a sea of
thatched huts with mud walls. In
ordinary times, one would not have
wondered why they looked more like
police stations than schools. And that
is how the rulers had managed to go
ahead with their plan of massive
construction of school buildings in
remotest places like Abhujmaad where,
the government agrees, it had not even
conducted a survey until date. Come
2010 and the place has become a hub
of construction activity. For it is the
year of Green Hunt or the hunt to wipe
off all greenery from the existing
forests. So the secret of Chidambaram
or what one would call in the south of
our country as Chidambara
rahasayam is to actually construct
buildings that would serve as camps
for his paramilitary forces who are
deployed to wage a bloody war on
the adivasi people and the Maoists who
lead them in their struggle for a life of
dignity and liberation from the
exploitation and terrible oppression by
the rapacious plunderers and thugs who
are protected fully by the Indian State
and all the parliamentary parties. These
buildings become acceptable as they
double up as schools while the real
ulterior motive of using them as the
camping stations of the police and
paramilitary is disguised under the
veneer of education of tribal children.
17
Many well-meaning democratic
intellectuals, human and civil rights
organizations fall prey to this ingenious
but heinous tactic of the ruling classes
who have unleashed the most brutal
bloody war under hypocrite
Chidambaram.
Anti-Maoist propaganda by some
human rights and other groups
A hue and cry is raised by some
so-called human rights groups that
Maoists have been targeting the school
buildings and preventing the children
from receiving primary education. The
so-called “mainstream media”, hired
by the tiny parasitic corporate elite, has
gone all out of its way to condemn the
bombing of school buildings,
panchayat buildings, anganwadi
centres, and hospital buildings all of
which are non-functional in general but
have attracted the attention of these
organizations just because Maoists
have been destroying them. These so-
called voluntary organizations, most of
which are actually propped up by the
imperialist and corporate interests, cry
foul whenever there is an attack by
Maoists on these buildings but never
utter a word of disapproval when the
so-called security forces occupy these
buildings thereby depriving the
children of schooling.
For instance, a report in the
Economic Times of ….wrote under a
provocative caption “A destructive
school of thought called naxalism”
thus: “A UN panels’ study has said
that around 250 schools have been
blown up in Chhattisgarh in the past
one year by Naxalites and students
are recruited in large numbers for
18
subversive activities. According to a
United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO) report, India figures
among the four countries that have
seen a marked increase in systematic
attacks on schools, students and
teachers between 2006 and 2009…In
India, nearly 300 schools were
reportedly blown up by Maoists
between 2006 and 2009, according
to the report. These include 50 in the
two states of Jharkhand and Bihar
in the year 2009. The UN found that
dozens of schools have been
occupied for security operations
including at least 37 in Jharkhand
in the first half of 2009. In February
2007, Chhattisgarh government
sources said that more than 250
schools had been blown up in recent
months.”
The daily that serves as the
mouthpiece of the parasitic elite that is
plundering our country and our people,
calls for “disrupting, dismantling and
destroying the network of the Red
thugs.” Not a word is said as to why
the school buildings are targeted, why
the reactionary rulers have suddenly
embarked upon the construction of
school buildings at a hectic pace in the
remotest regions of the country where
more than 50 per cent of the population
are living under chronic famine and
even safe drinking water is not available
for the overwhelming majority. Not a
word is said as to why three lakh
adivasis were forced to flee after the
Indian rulers commenced their
Operation Green Hunt under the direct
supervision of the thug Chidambaram
9 months ago. And why another one
lakh adivasis were displaced by Salwa
Judum, the hired gang of armed
hooligans created for serving the Tatas,
Mittals, Jindals, Essar, Vedanta and
other rapacious plunderers; why,
between 2005 and 2009, over 700
villages were destroyed obviously
along with the schools by these blood-
thirsty murderous gangs deployed by
PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010
the Congress-led government at the
Centre and the BJP government in
Chhattisgarh. The UN report or its
reproduction in the Economic Times
deliberately avoid the crucial question:
where are the children in these villages
when entire villages are razed to the
ground by Salwa Judum and the
paramilitary forces? Why are they
bothered more about school buildings
than the children who are supposed to
sit in them? If at all they are serious
about education for the children they
must first raise their voices against the
eviction of the adivasi people from
thousands of villages in Dantewada,
Bijapur, Narayanpur, Kanker,
Rajnandgaon and other districts of
Chhattisgarh, in some parts of
Jharkhand, Bihar, Orissa and West
Bengal. They must demand the
immediate withdrawal of all police
camps from school buildings and other
buildings in the villages, stop murders,
arrests, tortures, rapes and destruction
of property of adivasi villagers which
makes it impossible for their children
to carry on their education. They must
demand the establishment of peace in
the villages by immediate halt to the
bloody onslaught by the central and
state forces against the innocent
unarmed adivasi people. Without
raising these demands, simply accusing
the Maoists of disrupting the education
of children through destruction of
schools, is not only biased and
irresponsible but is also a futile and
diversionary tactic that helps the ruling
class oppressors to obfuscate the real
issue.
PM
 Children at risk as schools become barracks in anti-Maoist war
Chhattisgarh defies the Supreme Court and security forces are
still in occupation of school premises despite assurances to the contrary.
School’s out! In Kerlapal, Dantewada, battle-weary
soldiers of the B company of the 2nd Battalion of the Central
Reserve Police Force peer over barbed-wire fences as skinny
schoolboys in sky-blue shirts play cricket. The force has
occupied the senior school and with it the basketball court
and part of the playing field; but the game must go on.
As paramilitary troops pour into Chhattisgarh to fight the
Maoists, the absence of military barracks has forced soldiers
and children to share the only concrete structures in the
countryside – the village school.
A PIL filed in the Supreme Court has drawn attention to
the militarization of Chhattisgarh’s schools, but the State
government is in denial. On February 18, 2010, the counsel
appearing for Chhattisgarh told the Supreme Court that all
schools occupied by security forces had been vacated. To
quote from the Supreme Court order of February 18: “It is
also stated by learned counsel appearing for the State that
the schools, hospitals, ashrams and anganwadis have already
been vacated and they are no longer been used for camps or
places for shelter of the police force.”
However, an investigation by The Hindu in the three districts
of Davtewada, Narayanpur and Bijapur found numerous sites
where the security forces continue to occupy school land or
have simply appropriated school land for their barracks .
these findings contradict the claims made by Chhatisgarh in
the Supreme Court, suggesting that the counsel for the State
was either dangerously misinformed, or guilty of making false
statements in India’s higher court.
In Dantewada district, The Hindu found security forces
operating out of a senior school in Kerlapal, a junior and middle
school in Karli and a tribal girls’ hostel in Bhusaras.
In Narayanpur district, the G-company of the 39 t h
Battalion of the CRPF moved into the middle school and gram
panchayat building of Bhatpal village as recently as on
February 10 – a week before Chhattisgarh’s counsel made
his submission in court. Officers at the site said a portion of
the school would be permanently handed over to the CRPF
and that the construction of barracks was underway. In
Munjmetta village, the 139th Battalion has taken over a primar
and middle school and moved the children to adjacent
structures.
In Bijapur , even the Collector’s office is in a college
building. A list signed by the Superintendent of Police shows
16 schools as occupied by the security forces. When
contacted by The Hindu over telephone, SP, Bijapur, Avinash
Mohanty said “relocation is an ongoing process”, but CRPF
PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010
Aman Sethi
The Hindu March 27, 2010
sources confirmed that the force was yet to relinquish
any occupied site.”
“When forces occupy schools they blur the line
between civilian and military targets and put the children
at risk,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, senior researcher for
Human Rights Watch and author of a study on the
militarisaiton of schools in Jharkhand. “Children –
particularly girls – begin to drop out as their parents do
not want them near the force.”
Fears that basing the force in schools could provoke
a backlash from the Maoists were realized on March 15,
2007 when they attacked a police outpost based in a
residential girls’ school in Bijapur district’s Rani Bodli
village. Even as young girls from Classes I to V covered
in their hostel. Maoist cadre killed 55 policemen in an
adjoining wing of the building.
The only three police personnel who survived did so
by hiding in the girl’s hostel.
Maoists have also targeted unoccupied school
buildings, allegedly to deny security forces shelter.
According to the Collector’s office, in the two-year period
from 2006 to 2008 Maoists destroyed 70 school
buildings in Narayanapur district alone. Not a single school
has been rebuilt.
In Palachalam village, Dantewada, Maoists destroyed
the sole school that catered to students from at least three
neighbouring villages and built a giant red minar in its place.
Now, children as young as ten years of age are forced to
to a residential school in Maraigudum, more than 20
kilometres away from their homes and their parents.
“Troops need a concrete structure they can defend
from attacks, which, in most cases, is the village school”,
said Ravideep Singh Sahi, Deputy Inspector-General for
Bastar of the CRPF. “We are trying to construct regular
barracks, but contrctors and labourers are unwilling to
work in sensitive areas.”
Mr. Sahi hoped that the force and villagers could work
together. In Bhatpal for instance, the CRPF donated a
computer to the senior school in an attempt to foster
goodwill with the villagers.
Privately, many CRPF officers expressed frustration
with existing accommodation. “A camp needs proper
barracks, security and a clear line of fire,” said a senior
CRPF officer, “The current facilities are adhoc at best.”
Contd..... on Page 10
19
 The Right to Education: A Paper Right without Substance
On March 31, 2010 the Union
Minister of Human Resources
Department, Kapil Sibal, announced
that Right to Education will be a
fundamental right from April 1. This
means the state governments and local
bodies are obliged to provide free and
compulsory education to every child
from 6 to 14 years. The Constitutional
amendment was actually made nine
years ago but nothing more was done
in this regard. Now the UPA
government has taken up this Act called
the Right of Children to Free and
Compulsory Education Act, with the
pressure from the World Bank and the
privatization lobby. The UPA
government decided to introduce this
to achieve the twin objective of
projecting itself as a pro-people
government wedded to the welfare of
the people while at the same time
accomplishing its secret agenda of
giving a big boost to private schools
instead of trying to set up common
schools. The ceding of Rights to the
people is the easiest thing to do
whereas ensuring the protection of
these Rights and their implementation
is the most difficult task. Kapil Sibal
and his UPA government did the
easiest thing but has neither the
wherewithal or the mechanisms to
implement the so-called Right to
Education. In fact, the UPA
government has done the same with
regard to Food Security while it neither
has the mechanism nor the will to stop
the rotting of the huge stocks of food
grains and distribute them to the
starving dying hundreds of millions of
our poor people. But the net gainers
and the real beneficiaries of these
Rights are a handful of the rich who
make a fast buck out of everything that
is ostensibly meant for people’s
welfare. RTE is no exception to this
general rule in a society based on
horrifying exploitation.
20
Under the RTE the only obligation
for the private schools is to reserve 25
per cent of their seats for children from
the economically weaker sections. The
private schools will now flourish in a
massive way with government funds.
Who will get permission for setting up
schools is anybody’s guess. Those
wielding money power and can bribe
the officials and politicians will be the
real beneficiaries of this Right to
Education. Under the façade of the
Right to Education, the UPA
government also wants to divert
people’s attention from its plans to
expand the elitist, private education by
allowing imperialist educational
institutes and universities to set up their
campuses in India. Due to the massive
amounts of money that will be spent
for the implementation of the RTE, it
has come as a big boon to the corrupt
politicians and officials who are neck-
deep in scandals involving funds
allotted for various people’s schemes.
Needless to say, like every
fundamental right the RTE too will
remain more on paper rather than in
implementation. We know the fate of
other fundamental rights which are too
dear for the poor to enjoy. Seeking
justice and redressal for any violation
of these rights would imply adequate
funds on the part of the victim for
approaching a court of law. All the
fundamental rights guaranteed by the
Indian Constitution have been more
often than not violated by the police,
the feudal forces, the comprador class,
contractors and the governments. The
vast majority in our country simply
cannot afford the means to fight against
the might of the violators of the
fundamental rights guaranteed by the
Constitution. Although the RTE is said
to come into force from April 1, 2010
the private schools have expressed
their inability to implement the 25 per
cent quota for the children of the
economically weaker sections this
academic year.
PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010
The Hard Facts
220 million children go to schools
but only 18 million reach college. 40
per cent of the eligible children do not
go to school. And out of those who
go, 75 per cent drop out by the time
they reach class VIII. Survey of
Education Report says half of India’s
children in Class V cannot read a Class
II-level text book or do basic
mathematics. Lack of teachers is one
of the most important causes for this
pathetic situation. A 2005 World Bank
report mentioned that 25 per cent of
teachers were absent from school, and
only about half of those present taught
anything. 1,20,000 elementary schools
have only one teacher. Even these
teachers hardly go to schools when
they are situated in remote areas.
Currently, more than 5.23 lakh teacher
posts are vacant. An additional 5.1
lakh teachers are required to meet the
pupil-teacher ratio to 30:1 as stipulated
under the RTE Act. But without
addressing the problem of absenteeism
on the part of teachers and their
disinterestedness in teaching the
children, will appointing another 5 lakh
new teachers solve this problem?
Another serious constraint is the
lack of funds for implementing the RTE.
The amount required to implement
RTE over the next five years is a
massive Rs. 1.78 lakh crore i.e Rs.
34,000 crore every year for the next
five years. The Central government has
allotted only Rs. 15,000 crore for
2010-2011. Even if the states meet
their share of funds the shortage of
funds in the very first year is estimated
to be around Rs. 7000 crore. The
share of expenses between the Centre
and states will be 55:45 ratio. But there
is demand from virtually all states that
the ratio should be 65:35 between the
Centre and states. Without such a ratio
the states say it will be impossible for
them to implement the RTE due to
acute shortage of funds.
 The states are obliged to recruit and
deploy teachers at a ratio of 30:1,
establish neighbourhood schools within
three years and train all teachers all of
which require huge sums of money
which the state governments are not
prepared to spend. 5.48 lakh untrained
teachers at the primary level and 2.25
lakh at upper primary level have to
acquire necessary qualification within
five years of the RTE Act coming into
force. The Mayawati government in
Uttar Pradesh has already come out
with the demand for Rs. 18,000 crore
from the Centre.
Impracticable Provisions
There are also several
impracticable provisions in the Act that
are only meant to encourage more
corruption. For instance, the Act
monitors the infrastructure in schools
including the number of class rooms,
sanitary conditions, and safe drinking
water and so on. This is an amusing
provision going by the fact that several
such existing laws related to the quality
of schools and other educational
institutions lie unimplemented. As it is,
out of the 1.29 million government and
private schools, over 60 per cent did
not have electricity, 46 per cent did
not have toilets for girls, and 50 per
cent did not have compound walls to
ensure the safety of the students. UP
alone needs to construct 100,000 class
rooms to meet the provisions stipulated
under the RTE. Another provision that
will remain merely on paper is: schools
that do not meet the infrastructure
standards within three years will be de-
recognized and that untrained school
teachers must get the requisite
professional degree within five years.
State governments and local bodies
will have to establish primary schools
within one kilometre of the
neighbourhood and upper primary
schools (Class VI to VIII) within three
Kilometres. In the absence of a school
in small hamlets, the state government
shall make adequate arrangements like
free transportation and residential
facilities.
Can hungry children really enjoy
the RTE?
The fundamental problem of the
children in our country is hunger,
malnutrition and disease. How can
children of the poor who form the
overwhelming majority of the Indian
population ever get into the school
when their basic problem of hunger
and poverty is not solved? Now it is a
well known fact that the poor cannot
afford to send their children to schools
even if education is free and
compulsory. They would rather prefer
to have their children tend the fields,
look after cattle or help them in other
domestic works than sending them to
school that would fetch nothing tangible
for the family or alleviate their
miserable condition. For many
poverty-stricken families children are
a source of extra income and hence
without addressing the issue of poverty
and hunger it is futile to speak of free
and compulsory education for children
between 6 and 14 years. RTE
stipulates a fine of Rs. 10,000 for
preventing a child from attending school
or making him/her work! Needless to
say, this will be as “effective” or rather
as ineffective as the dowry act,
bonded labour abolition act or
untouchability act in the rural areas.
There is a gross under estimation in the
figure of 8 million cited by the
government regarding the total number
of children between 6-14 years who
do not go to school.
Kapil Sibal should first think of how
to free the huge number of children
belonging to this age group who are
forced to do work in various sectors
out of economic compulsion. Any one
PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010
with some degree of sincerity would
first devise means of freeing the child
from the unbearable conditions of
exploitation in sweat shops and other
informal works and ensure freedom
from hunger. What is the plan of Mr.
Sibal for achieving this basic objective
without which RTE would be a mere
showpiece? Absolutely nothing.
What would RTE produce
ultimately?
The Prime Minster Man Mohan
Singh did not face the problem of
hunger and poverty when he studied
at school. There is nothing of
substance in what he said while
introducing the Bill: “I am what I am
today because of education.” The fact
is Man Mohan Singh would not have
been what he is today if he chose to
serve the people of India and protect
the interests of our country instead of
serving the imperialists and a tiny
parasitic corporate elite that are
plundering our country’s resources. It
is also true that the kind of education
the exploiting classes want to impart
will only create self-seeking, anti-
people comprador agents like Man
Mohan Singh. Or else, which other Sikh
would shamelessly continue in a Party
that had massacred 3000 people of
one’s own community in 1984 and
which has been trying to suppress the
facts related to the role of its leaders
in the genocide? And even rewarding
the culprits like Kamal Nath with
ministerial posts and murderers like
Sajjan Kumar with Z plus category
protection?
Hence one of the major things of
concern with regard to education is:
what type of education is sought to be
given to children from 6-14 years
which are the most crucial years in
terms of moulding of the minds? By
making education free and compulsory
the exploiters also wish to inculcate
their reactionary ideas among the
young and transform their minds in
accordance with the needs of the
Contd..... on Page 37
21
 International Women’s Day (IWD)
is the story of ordinary women as makers of history
Introduction:
International Women’s Day (IWD)
is the story of ordinary women as
makers of history; it is rooted in the
centuries-old struggle of women to
participate in society on an equal
footing with men. The idea of having
an international women’s day was first
put forward at the turn of the 20th
century amid rapid world
industrialization and capitalist
economic expansion that led to protests
over working conditions.
A Century is passed after that. In
this historical context it is time to reflect
on progress made, to call for change
and to celebrate acts of courage and
determination by ordinary women who
have played an extraordinary role in
the history of women’s rights and social
change.
IWD, March 8, is a holiday
celebrated by the oppressed around
the world. It is a holiday that came out
22
Rajitha
of the struggle of women. In particular,
the struggle of immigrant garment
workers in New York’s Lower East
Side provided the inspiration for the
demand that there be a special day to
celebrate the struggle of women.
International Women’s Day
was the fruit of the efforts of women in
the Second International. Clara Zetkin,
the legendary German Communist
leader and an international Socialist
leader proposed in the Second
International conference of socialist
women held in Copenhagen (Denmark)
in 1910, that women throughout the
world should focus on a particular day
each year to press for their demands.
Zetkin and others emphasized the
international scope of their vision,
calling on “the Socialist women of all
countries [to] hold each year a
Women’s Day,” and declaring that
“The Women’s Day must have an
international character.”
The conference established a
Women’s Day, international in
character, to honour the movement for
women’s rights and to assist in
achieving universal suffrage for women.
It would commemorate the US
demonstrations and honour working
women the world over. The
conference decided that every year,
in every country, they should
celebrate on the same day a
PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010
“Women’s Day” under the slogan
“The vote for women will unite our
strength in the struggle for
socialism”. It was decided to have a
Woman’s Day in every country as a
form of struggle in getting working
women to vote. This day was to be a
day of international solidarity in the
fight for common objectives and a day
for reviewing the organized strength
of working women under the banner
of socialism.
Over 100 women from 17
countries, representing unions, socialist
parties, working women’s clubs, and
including the first three women elected
to the Finnish parliament, greeted
Zetkin’s suggestion with unanimous
approval and International Women’s
Day was the result. (It was again
passed unanimously a few days later
in the general International Socialist
Congress. Com V.I. Lenin, the great
leader of the Bolshevik Party and the
Russian Revolution, was among those
who voted at this conference to
establish this tradition). Since then it
has been celebrated worldwide by
class conscious workers and those
fighting for the liberation of women and
the emancipation of all humanity.
That conference also reasserted the
importance of women’s right to vote,
dissociated it self from voting systems
based on property rights and called for
universal suffrage - the right to vote for hostility on the part of men, women In spite of many arrests and heavy
all adult women and men. found themselves excluded from most fines, brutal beatings by police and
That is how it began and was of the national trade unions. So they hired thugs, the women, many of them
celebrated for the first time formed their own, including the teenagers, continued the walkouts.
internationally in 1911. Daughters of St. Crispin, a union of Middle and upper class women
women shoemakers. During this era inspired by the strikers came out to
Before we go in to the history of
unions were formed by woman cigar the pickets to give their support and
what have happened in these 100
makers, umbrella sewers, and printers, they too were arrested. And when
years, let us remember the struggle of
as well as tailoresses and laundresses. newspapers covered these unusual
the immigrant garment workers of the
The clothing workers formed some of arrests, the public began to find out
Lower East side of New York, who
the most famous unions in U.S. history, about the brutal conditions and slave
stood as inspiration for the IWD.
notably the International Ladies wages of the women strikers.
A Brief History of the struggle of Garment Workers Union, founded
Garment Workers: around 1900. With the support of the National
Those ordinary women who Women’s Trade Union League,
The first all women strike took place
stood as inspiration for having a in New England Tailoring trades in founded in 1903 - a combination of
women’s day were the “garment early 1820’s. Many followed. The working women and middle-class,
workers” of lower east side of New strike at Lowell cotton Mills became often professional women who
York City. Most of these women were famous among the initial strikes. The supported the working women’s
migrant workers from Russia, Italy and initial protests of walk outs could not struggle - the shirtwaist makers
Poland. Due to the rapid get them the results. So slowly they launched a series of strikes against
Industrialisation and capitalist started getting organized. Workers of Leiserson and Company and Triangle
economic expansion these women Lowell Cotton Mills formed Lowell Waist Company, two of the most
workers were heavily exploited. They Female labour Reform Association in notorious shops in New York.
worked up to 15 hours a day and were 1844. The prime demand was the ten After months of small shop actions,
paid by rate per piece. They were hour a day. the women decided to escalate the
charged for needles, thread, electricity, struggle by calling for a trade wide
and even the crude boxes they had to Women from clothing and textile
general strike. And in defiance of the
sit on because there were no chairs. factories staged a protest on March 8, heads of the union, on November 22,
They were issued harsh fines—for 1857 in New York City. The garment 1909, the “Uprising of the Twenty
being late, for damaged work, for workers marched and picketed, Thousand’’ began. It culminated in the
taking too much time in the toilet. demanding improved working first long-term general strike by women,
Children also worked for long hours, conditions, ten hour a day, and equal putting to death the tiresome arguments
huddled in the corners of the shops, rights for women. They were that they were unable to organize and
snipping threads from finished protesting what they saw as very poor carry out a long and strenuous struggle.
garments. working conditions and low wages.
The protesters were attacked. Their The Women’s Trade Union League
The garment trade shops in the
big cities, such as New York, were ranks were broken up and dispersed provided bail money for arrested
deplorable. Fire hazards were rife, light by the police. These women strikers and large sums for strike funds.
was scant, the sound of machinery established their first labor union in the The strike was ultimately broken, as
deafening, the environment polluted. same month two years later. More settlements were made shop by shop,
Women were fined virtually for protests followed on March 8 in but the talent and endurance of the
anything - talking, laughing, singing, subsequent years. women made it impossible for people
machine oil stains on the fabric, stitches Fifty one years later, on March 8, to go on claiming that labour organizing
too large or too small. Overtime was 1908, their sisters in the needle was for men only. The strike lasted for
constant and required, but no special trades in New York marched again, months and ignited strikes in other
pays for overtime work. honoring the 1857 march, demanding areas. Though the strike itself was only
In the period of intense labor the vote, and an end to sweatshops partially successful in terms of changing
activity following the Civil War, when and child labor. 15,000 women work conditions, the “uprising” did
widowhood and general hard times marched through New York City change some important things. It
forced thousands of women into the demanding shorter working hours, challenged the image of what
labor force, thus causing panic and better pay and voting rights. uneducated immigrant women could
PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010 23
do, and it filled the East Side and many
women and immigrants and oppressed
people more broadly with pride and a
sense of strength.
In 1908 the Socialist Party
in US appointed a Women’s National
Committee to Campaign for the
Suffrage. After the meeting, this
Committee recommended that the
Socialist Party set aside a day every
year to campaign to women’s right
to vote, a big step for socialists and
welcomed by women working for
suffrage.
The First Women’s Day was
observed across the United States on
28 February in 1909 and large
demonstrations took place calling for
the vote and the political and
economic rights of women.
The International Women’s Day
was marked for the first time on 19
March, 1911 in Austria, Denmark,
Germany, Switzerland and other
European countries.
Review of the century
Two different movements have
sought to achieve women’s liberation
over the past hundred or more years,
Marxism and feminism. Both wish to
eradicate women’s unequal and
oppressed position in present-day
society, and to replace it with the full
and genuine equality of men and
women. However, they explain
women’s oppression in very different
ways, and pursue strategies which are
quite opposed to one another.
Feminism sees the basic division in
the world as that between men and
women. The cause of women’s
oppression is men’s urge to dominate
and control them. History is the story
of the unchanging patriarchal structures
through which men have subjugated
women. The only way to abolish these
structures is for women, of whatever
social class, to unite against men, of
whatever class.
For Marxism, however, the
fundamental antagonism in society is
24
that between classes, not sexes. For
thousands of years a minority of men
and women have co-operated to live
off the labour of the overwhelming
majority of working men and women.
The class struggle between exploiter
and exploited, whatever their sex, is
the driving force of historical change.
Women’s oppression can only be
understood in the context of the wider
relations of class exploitation. Marx
and Engels were able to show, by
developing the materialist concept of
history, that only the class struggle can
achieve socialism and women’s
liberation. The exploitation which men
and women workers alike experience
in their work leads them to organize
collectively against capitalism. It is the
struggle of this united working class
which will sweep away oppression
and exploitation alike.
Because of its prevailing views, the
women’s movement falls into using the
terms “women” and “women’s
oppression” in a vague,
undifferentiated and a-historical way.
For female slaves oppression meant
physical cruelty, sexual exploitation,
forced separation from their children.
For the leisured, financially
comfortable plantation mistress it
meant social and legal restrictions, and
repressive sexuality. For working-class
women the industrial revolution meant
brutal capitalist exploitation plus the
horrors of childbearing in terrible
conditions (the vast majority of
children dying in infancy). For the
capitalist’s wife it meant an oppressive
leisured life. To lump all women
together in one word is to miss the
specific historical conditions and to
sidestep the role of the rich ladies in
the enslavement and exploitation of
working women and men.
Women are not a separate group;
they are dispersed throughout the
population. If women are the most
exploited of workers, they are also
among the exploiters.
PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010
When it comes to present-day
women’s oppression, the many
proponents of the women’s movement
talk of that oppression as a product of
“patriarchy”. Male domination is thus
interpreted as a supra-historical factor,
existing independently of class society
or capitalism.
Engels argues that it was the rise of
private property and the division of
society into classes which led to the
subjugation of women. Under
capitalism the production of the
necessities of life is a social process,
while reproduction – the rearing of
children – is a private process, taking
place largely in the enclosed family.
The oppression of women is rooted in
the dichotomy between the two. Hence
the fight for women’s liberation cannot
be separated from the fight against
capitalism.
Oppression in itself does not
necessarily lead to a struggle for
liberation. The oppression of women,
by dividing them and imprisoning them
in the four walls of the home, leads
most often to powerlessness and
submission. Only where women, as
workers, have collective power do they
gain confidence to fight exploitation,
and are then also able to fight their
oppression as women. The other side
of the coin is that women workers, like
other oppressed groups, are in a
period of social crisis often more
spontaneously revolutionary than men.
The struggle of workers against
exploitation is the key to their
successful struggle against all
oppression. Hence the first step for
working-class women in entering the
arena of struggle for their liberation as
women is to leave the isolation of the
home and enter the social area of
production.
For bourgeois sociologists,
economists and historians, exploitation
is mere exploitation; for Marxists it is
the axis of class struggle, the
springboard for human liberation. The
brutalization led to a struggle, by
women and men, for social changes
to the benefit of the working class as a
whole, as we see.
In human history, including
women’s history, revolutions are the
peaks. The role of women in the
English revolution of the seventeenth
century, when for the first time modern
ideas of women’ s liberation and a new
sexual morality blossomed, and in the
French revolution of the eighteenth
century and the Paris Commune of the
nineteenth century, demonstrate the
indomitable struggles of working-class
women.
Beginning of IWD celebrations:
IWD was marked for the first time
on 19 March, 1911 in Austria,
Denmark, Germany, Switzerland and
other European countries, where more
than one million women and men
attended rallies. Socialists held strikes
and marches on the same day. In
addition to the right to vote and to hold
public office, they demanded the right
to work, to vocational training and to
an end to gender discrimination on
jobs.
Clara Zetkin organized the first
IWD on March 19 in 1911 in Germany.
A million leaflets calling for action on
the right to vote were distributed
throughout Germany before IWD in
1911.
In 1913 International Women’s
Day has remained the “working
women’s day of militancy”. In those
bleak years meetings were forbidden.
But in Petrograd, at the
Kalashaikovsky Exchange, those
women workers who belonged to the
Party organized a public forum on “The
Woman Question.” Delegate fee was
five kopecks. This was an illegal
meeting but the hall was totally
packed. Members of the Party spoke.
But this animated “closed” meeting had
hardly finished when the police,
alarmed at such proceedings,
intervened and arrested many of the
speakers.
As the nascent annual event
developed, it took on the cause of
peace as well as women’s rights.
Furthermore, on the eve of World War
I, women across Europe held peace
rallies on March 8, 1913. Elsewhere
in Europe, on or around 8 March of
the following year, women held rallies
either to protest against the war or to
express solidarity with their sisters. In
1915, Zetkin organized a instrument to raise the level of
demonstration in Bern, Switzerland, to
urge the end of World War I. Women
on both sides of the war turned out.
Observances spread to France, the
Netherlands and Sweden.
In 1914, “Women Workers Day”
in Russia was better organized. Both
the workers’ newspapers concerned
themselves with the celebration.
Because of police intervention, they
didn’t manage to organize a
demonstration. Those involved in the
planning of “Women Workers Day”
found themselves in the Tsarist prisons,
and many were later sent to the cold
north. For the slogan “for the working
women’s vote” had naturally become
in Russia an open call for the
overthrow of Tsarist autocracy”.
In 1914 the Bolshevik Central
Committee decided to create a special
committee to organise the meetings for
IWD. Meetings were held in the
factories and public places to discuss
issues concerning women’s
oppression, and to elect
representatives from those who had
participated in the discussions and
proposals, to work on the new
committee.
The propaganda work of the paper
‘Rabotnitsa’ was now becoming ever
more central to the work of the
Bolsheviks. On its editorial board were
such stalwarts of women’s liberation
as comrades Krupskaya, Innessa
Armand, Stahl, Kollontai, Eliazarova,
Kudelli, Samoilova, and Nikolayeva
and other female workers of St
Petersburg. These women were totally
PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010
dedicated to the revolutionary cause,
they organized meetings, called
aggregates and generally focused the
work, developing the revolution. Each
factory had its own representatives on
the editorial board of ‘Rabotnitsa’ and
there were weekly meetings, where all
would participate and review the
reports received from the different
areas. The paper was also used as an
understanding in both trade union and
political structures, which were still
lagging behind the consciousness of the
masses, towards a better
understanding of the role of women
workers.
In March 1917 the Bolsheviks
created a bureau to promote
revolutionary work among women
workers. The party called for a
Congress for all women workers, to
discuss the best way to involve and
organize women in the revolutionary
struggles then taking place. In this
period Lenin wrote many articles on
the need to find new strategies and
specific organizational models to attract
women workers to socialism.
Demonstrations marking IWD in
Russia proved to be the first stage of
the Russian Revolution. With 2 million
Russian soldiers dead in the war,
Russian women again chose the last
Sunday in February to strike for “bread
and peace”. This was led by women
in St. Petersburg. The government
attempted to stop the demonstrations
called to celebrate International
Women’s Day. This provoked clashes
with workers, especially in the Putilov
factory in St Petersburg, which ended
in a mass mobilization of workers. The
women came out onto the streets and
spoke to the soldiers, who then refused
to open fire against the demonstrators,
turning their bayonets against the
Tsarist monarchy. During 1917 the
general consensus of opposition to the
imperialist war increased, strengthening
the Bolsheviks, who had been
25
courageously denouncing the
imperialist war since 1914.
Coming on the rise of long struggle
and many strikes, IWD 1917 inspired
thousands of Russian women to leave
their homes and factories to protest the
terrible shortages of food, the high
prices, the world war, and the
increased suffering they had bitterly
endured. The protest inspired the last
push of a revolution. A general strike
spread through Petrograd. The IWD
strike merged with riots that had spread
through the city between March 8-12.
The February Revolution, as it became
known, forced the Czar Nicholas II to
abdicate four days later and the
provisional Government granted
women the right to vote. That historic
Sunday fell on 23 February on the
Julian calendar then in use in Russia,
but on 8 March on the Gregorian
calendar in use elsewhere. (Russia
switched from the Julian to the
Gregorian calendar in 1918, which
moved the dates of the February
revolution [Feb. 24–28, old style] to
March.)
This was a milestone in the
emancipation of women: the first
occasion on which the complete
economic, political and sexual equality
of women was put on the historical
agenda. New political, civic, economic
and family codes were promulgated,
aiming to wipe away at one stroke
centuries-old inequalities. The new
government granted women the vote,
passed divorce and civil laws which
made marriage a voluntary relationship,
eliminated the distinction between
legitimate and illegitimate children.
Following the October Revolution, the
IWD was made into an official holiday, and
during the Soviet period it continued to
celebrate “the heroic woman worker”.
International Women’s Day
The first time International Women’s
Day was held in Russia was in 1913.
It was held six days early, on 2 March
(17 February by the old calendar then
26
in use) for fear of police interference.
The Bolshevik newspaper Pravda
commemorated the day with a special
six-page issue, and a holiday
committee was set up by the
Bolshevik-controlled Petersburg
Committee of the Social Democratic
Party, consisting of a group of women
textile workers and Bolshevik activists.
Celebrations took place in five cities:
St Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev, Samara
and Tblisi. The largest was in St
Petersburg. Over a thousand people
– out of a larger number who failed to
get in – crowded into the hall, which
was heavily policed both outside and
inside, the police occupying the first
two rows. One of the main speakers,
a textile worker, Ianchevskaia,
summed up the meaning of the
assembly thus: “The women workers’
movement is a tributary flowing into
the great river of the proletarian
movement and giving it strength.”
These words and the general spirit
of Intrnational Women s Day grated
on the nerves of the bourgeois feminist
Dr Pokrovskaia. She wrote:
As we expected, the women
workers’ day did not protest at all
against the subordinate position of
wives in relation to their husbands.
They spoke primarily of the
enslavement of the proletarian women
by capital, and only in passing
mentioned domestic subservience ...
Mme Kudelli was wrong in asserting
that economic interests are the most
important for the woman worker.
Personal freedom stands higher.
Her conclusion was: all men
benefitted from male privilege; all
women must join together to fight it.
In 1914 the government refused a
request for ten meetings in the larger
workers’ quarters of St Petersburg to
celebrate International Women’s Day
on 8 March, allowing only one, and
this was heavily policed. Three of the
five planned speakers were arrested
and the police refused to allow
PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010
substitutes. Disappointed and angry,
many of the large numbers present
spilled out into the streets, singing
revolutionary songs, only to be
eventually dispersed by the police,
who made mass arrests.
In both 1913 and 1914 there were
deep differences between the
Mensheviks, who wanted only women
to participate in the celebrations, and
the Bolsheviks, who insisted that
International Women s Day should be
celebrated not only by working
women but by the entire working class.
During the war it was far more
difficult to celebrate International
Women’s Day. But despite a
government ban the day was
commemorated in 1915 and 1916 by
small meetings and celebrations.)
During the 1930’s the question of
women’s liberation was swept aside
in Europe under the hammer blows of
economic crisis and Nazism which
culminated in the out break of the
Second World War. It had a
devastating effect on the people of the
world. No country is untouched by this
depression. In those years of war from
1939 to 1945 there were no
celebrations. The powers of the world
changed and along with it the women’s
movement also had undergone a lot of
change. In the US after the end of the
world war, IWD was not celebrated
till the sixties though it is celebrated very
rarely and sporadically in Europe.
The stage for class struggle shifted
from Europe to Asia during the Second
World War and resulted in the success
of the Chinese revolution.
Chinese women began celebrating
IWD in l924, paralleling a strong
women’s movement in the Chinese
Communist party. The first strike by
women workers occurred in 24 silk
factories of Shanghai in 1922 in which
20,000 joined and demanded a 10-
hour working day and 5 cents wage-
increase per day. The first rally of
women, under party leadership, was
held on Women’s Day (8 March) of
1924 in Canton, where a group of girl
students and women workers raised
slogans: “Down with imperialism”,
“Down with warlords”, “Same work
same pay”, “protection for child
labour and pregnant mothers”,
“Equal education”, “Abolish child
brides and polygamy”, “Prohibit the
buying of slave girls and the taking
of concubines”, “Formulate a child
protection law”. These anti-imperialist
and anti-feudal slogans echoed
throughout the country and ushered in
a new phase in the women’s
movement. After the revolution, China
made IWD an official holiday, as in the
USSR.
One of the first acts of the People’s
Republic of China was the abolition of
prostitution in 1949.The Marriage Law
of 1950 and the later additions to it
gave more rights to women than
western bourgeois law could do.
Drifting away from the working
class:
Women’s liberation returned to the
agenda in the 1960s. It was the boom
period in America, with job
opportunities opening up for women.
A large number of middle class women
were drawn in to the women’s
movement as they faced a lot of sexist
attitudes of men who competed with
them for those jobs especially the
professional ones. These women were
convinced that advances did not lie in
politics or political parties, but in the
development of human faculties, “the
emancipation of the person”. It took
but a short time for the whole of the
American WLM to turn into a
collection of small groups, consisting
of about eight women each, in which
women talked to each other about their
individual experiences and analyzed
them together. This is called
‘consciousness raising’.
This trend for “consciousness-
raising” groups to become an end in
themselves was by no means the only
trend in the women’s liberation
movement in its early years. Many
women, especially socialist feminists in
Britain, argued that consciousness-
raising was important not because it
improved women’s lives but because
it gives women the confidence to take
part in political activity. Alas, it doesn’t.
You don’t build your confidence by
separating yourself off from the struggle
going on in the world around you. If
you do, then just the opposite
happens: you never get the chance to
develop the skills and arguments
necessary for political activity. As the
experience showed, women tended to
cling more and more to their small
groups, and when these broke up, to
drop out completely.
In a curious way, “consciousness-
raising” does not challenge the
prevailing ideas that the family and
personal relationships are separate
from society at large, ruled by their
own laws. “Consciousness-raising”,
after all, aims to change the ideas of
the individuals concerned – m the belief
that with the “right ideas” they could
then go on to change their personal,
sexual and family relationships. The
logic of this is that personal relationships
are moulded merely by the ideas which
we carry in our heads, not by the real
world in which we live. In contradiction
to this, personal relationships arise
from and are moulded by the total
social relations of the society around
us – and cannot ultimately be changed
in isolation from that reality.
The end result of this fragmentation
was the mushrooming
“oppressions”. Black women were
claiming that white feminists oppressed
them on grounds of colour. Lesbians
were claiming they were oppressed by
heterosexual women ... and so on. This
was the result of believing, in the first
place, that the source of oppression
was one group of individuals: men.
When women in the women’s
movement, now separated from men,
still felt oppressed, they reacted by
PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010
seeking out another group of
individuals to blame. In this way you
end up blaming those who agree with
you and leaving the social system –
the real source of oppression –
untouched.
With the general political weakness
of the American left, even at its high
point, and the growing economic
recession of the 1970s – a reality no
one could deny – the WLM,
composed of tiny, fragmented groups
and torn by intermittent squabbles,
proved powerless. Women who were
not content simply to contemplate their
own consciousness, but wanted some
action, turned towards the
respectable, conservative Women’s
Rights organisations, of which the most
prominent was NOW, the National
Organization of Women.
The movement of women into
NOW has been part of a general move
rightwards urged on by the economic
depression.
NOW’s mode of operation is very
traditional. It leans towards the
Democratic Party, urges women to
rely on the courts and Congress for
reforms, and indulges in lobbying as a
major activity. Typically members of
NOW have been very involved in the
campaign for the ordination of women
in the churches. In three years “over
40 women have become episcopal
priests”. Some 15,000 women
attended one of its conventions in
November 1977, including three “First
Ladies”!
NOW has proved ineffective not
of
only in failing to advance women’s
conditions, but even in blocking the
attack on women’s rights in recent
years, especially since Reagan became
President. Thus, the Equal Rights
Amendment, which was declared by
NOW to be the “number one
campaign” which it fought at the
expense of all other women’s issues,
failed in 1982, as not enough states
could be persuaded to ratify it.
27
 In Britain the trade unions had
more than half the working population
in membership. In Britain there is a
Labour Party with a mass vote among
the working class. The revolutionary
socialist organizations are also stronger
in Britain, with greater influence in the
working class. Although there has never
been a fusion of the women’s and trade
union movements in Britain, there have
been a few noteworthy common
actions.
Equal pay was an important issue
in the 1960s. By 1962, according to
a TUC survey, 19 trade unions,
representing 200,000 women, had
equal pay agreements with employers.
Thirty unions did not. Many unions
were pushing not only for equal pay
but for maternity leave, equal job
opportunities and equal terms and
conditions of work. In 1963 the Trades
Union Congress passed a resolution
calling on the next Labour government
– which was in fact to take office the
following year – to make equal pay a
requirement in law. The Women’s
Advisory Committee of the TUC
followed this with an Industrial
Charter for Women, demanding equal
pay, equal opportunities for training, re-
training facilities for women returning
to industry, and special provisions for
the health and welfare of women at
work. They had very little immediate
success.
But towards the end of the 1960s
there was a general struggle for
increased wages throughout the trade
union movement. The demand for
equal pay became one aspect of this.
A crucial strike took place in 1968 by
sewing machinists at Ford’s Dagenham
plant, followed by those in the
company’s Halewood plant on
Merseyside. The women organized
their own strike committee and brought
Ford to a standstill. Their victory
raised their pay to 92 per cent of the
men’s rates, although they failed to
raise their grading from “unskilled”.
The strike by the women at Ford
28
inspired many other women workers.
Out of it arose the National Joint Action
Campaign for Women’s Equal Rights
(NJACWER), which adopted a five-
point charter and called on the TUC
to lead a campaign for equal pay and
opportunity. [2] In May 1969 the
campaign organized an equal pay
demonstration which was supported by
women trade unionists from all over
the country.
Trade unions now made promises
that they would fight for equal pay as
part of their recruitment campaigns,
and women streamed in as new
members.
1970-74 were years of mass
working-class struggle, including two
national miners’ strikes, a national
dockers’ strike when five dockers – the
“Pentonville Five” – were jailed for
picketing, and more than 200 factory
occupations. These years also saw an
impressive array of women’s strikes.
In 1970 London night cleaners fought
for union recognition. The same year
20,000 Leeds clothing workers (85
per cent of them women) went on
strike. Flying pickets closed clothing
factories further afield in Yorkshire.
Tens of thousands of teachers, three-
quarters of them women, were also on
strike over pay for the first time in half
a century. 1971 saw a London
telephonists’ pay dispute, while at
Brannan’s, a small thermometer
factory in Cumberland, women struck
to defend trade union organization. In
1972 women joined the occupations
of Fisher-Bendix on Merseyside and
Briant Colour Printing in London. The
same year women at Goodman’s, part
of Thorn Electrical Industries,
successfully struck for equal pay. In
1973 hundreds of thousands of hospital
workers (the majority women) went on
their first ever national strike. In the
same year two hundred women in
GEC, Coventry, struck for eight weeks
over piece rates. Asian women at
Mansfield Hosiery Mills struck over
racial discrimination, and there was a
PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010
national NALGO strike – mainly of
women. There were many other
women’s strikes in this period of mass
upsurge.
Parallel with this, there was progress
in the women’s movement. The groups
which started in 1969 mushroomed.
The first organization to be set up was
the London Women’s Liberation
Workshop, which followed the
American example in being a network
of small groups with information
services. It stated:
…the men lead and dominate, the
women follow and submit. We close
our meetings to men to break through
this pattern, to establish our own
leaderless groups and to meet each
other over our common experience as
women ... For this reason, groups small
enough for all to take part in discussion
and decisions are the basic units of our
movement ... to further our part in the
struggle for social change and
transformation of society.
A few months later, in February
1970, the first National Women’s
Liberation Conference was held in
Ruskin College, Oxford. Nearly 600
women turned up, mostly from the new
women’s liberation groups, some from
NJACWER and some from Maoist
and Trotskyist groups. The conference
adopted a structure of small women’s
groups based on localities, loosely co-
ordinated through national meetings to
which each group could send two
delegates. The conference also set up
a Women’s National Co-ordinating
Committee.
On 6 March 1971 International
Women’s Day was celebrated for the
first time in London and Liverpool. The
demonstrators carried on their banners
four basic demands (worked out by
the Women s National Co-ordinating
Committee): for equal pay now, equal
education and job opportunities, free
contraception and abortion on
demand, and free 24-hour nurseries.
The four demands clearly identified the
aim of the women’s movement as being
to bring changes in the real world. They
were political demands in that they
were demands on the state, and they
well suited the needs of working-class
women.
Unfortunately a number of factors
pushed the growing women’s
movement away from the working
class. A measure of how the women’s
movement distanced itself from the
working class is the changes in its
platform of demands. In 1975, two
new demands were added: “Financial
and legal independence” and “an end
to all discrimination against lesbians
and a woman’s right to define her own
sexuality”. In 1978, at the last National
Women’s Conference, the following
demand was added: “Freedom from
intimidation by threat or use of
violence or sexual coercion, regardless
of marital status; and an end to all laws,
assumptions and institutions which
perpetuate male dominance and men’s
aggression towards women.” The
original four demands were clear, aimed
at changes in the real world and
directed towards the state; the added
ones largely related to “attitudes” and
“assumptions”, to “personal politics”.
The British movement, like the
American, was torn by a lesbian/
straight feminist conflict. Later it
confined itself to establishing refuge
centers for battered women and rape
victims, set up by feminists or by social
workers not associated with women’s
liberation.
There is also a network of other
centres: women’s aid and women’s
study centres, women’s collectives for
writing and publishing, health,
psychiatry, legal advice, child care,
carpentry. To their participants these
make up a “complete alternative
feminist culture”.
For socialists refuges for battered
women and their children are an
important social service, which needs
to be defended like hospitals or
schools. But in no way can they be
seen as more than palliatives, of
marginal impact on the human
wreckage caused by capitalism.
The women’s movement received
a new lease of life with the rise of the
Peace Movement, centred around
Greenham Common, the airbase in
Berkshire used for Cruise nuclear
missiles.
A feminist writes: “Nuclear
weapons are an expression of the
twisted values of a male-dominated
society ... We see nuclear weapons
and nuclear power as particularly
horrendous results of male
domination.”
They do not recognize that nuclear
weapons are the fruit of a capitalist
class society with its massive
concentration of economic, political
and military power. Hence the only
way to get rid of the weapons is by
overthrowing capitalism, by disarming
the capitalist class and arming the
working class.
Adoption of IWD by the ruling
class:
United Nations involvement
principally began in 1977 when the
General Assembly passed Resolution
32/142 inviting each country to
proclaim, in accordance with its
historical and national traditions and
customs, any day of the year as United
Nations Day for Women’s Rights and
International Peace.
March 8 was not specifically
designated in this resolution. However,
many countries have chosen to
observe the celebration on this day.
In adopting its resolution on the
observance of Women’s Day, the
General Assembly cited two reasons:
to recognize the fact that securing
peace and social progress and the full
enjoyment of human rights and
fundamental freedoms require the
active participation, equality and
development of women;
PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010
to acknowledge the contribution of
women to the strengthening of
international peace and security.
This is a far cry from the world of
the majority of women. The abyss
between these feminists and working-
class women was highlighted at the
International Women’s Year Tribunal
organized by the United Nations in
Mexico in 1975. Here two worlds met.
On the one side were the middle-class
women led by Betty Friedan, the
founder of NOW and one of the
original inspirers of the women~s
movement in America. On the other
were working-class women, among
them Domitila Barrio, a Bolivian
miner’s wife and mother of seven. She
had for fifteen years organized miners’
wives in struggles to aid their husbands
on strike. An indication of the miners’
conditions was that their life
expectancy was a mere 35 years.
Domitila Barrio had organized a long
hunger strike of women, and had gone
to prison a number of times, on one
occasion suffering a miscarriage while
in custody. She bitterly attacked the
rich feminists who turned up to the
conference. To the president of the
Mexican delegation she said:
Senora, I’ve known you for a
week. Every morning you show up in
a different outfit and on the other hand
I don’t. Every day you show up all
made up and combed like someone
who had time to spend in an elegant
beauty parlour and who can spend
money on that, and yet I don’t. I see
that each afternoon you have a
chauffeur in a car waiting at the door
of this place to take you home, and
yet I don’t. And in order to show up
here like you do, I’m sure you live in a
really elegant home, in an elegant
neighborhood, no? And yet we miners’
wives only have a small house on loan
to us, and when our husbands die or
get sick or are fired from the company,
we have ninety days to leave the house
and then we re in the street. Now,
senora, tell me: is your situation at all
29
similar to mine? Is my situation at all
similar to yours? So what equality are
we going to speak of between the two
of us? If you and I aren’t alike, if you
and I are so different?
The rich women, she claimed, were
blind to the conditions of women like
herself:
They couldn’t see the suffering of
my people; they couldn’t see how our
companeros are vomiting their lungs
bit by bit, in pools of blood. They
didn’t see how underfed our children
are. And, of course, they didn’t know,
as we do, what it’s like to get up at
four in the morning and go to bed at
eleven or twelve at night, just to be able
to get all the housework done, because
of the lousy conditions we live in.
She could not understand Betty
Freidan’s statement that she, Domitila,
and her friends were “manipulated by
men”.
Women’s Movement in India
The vast majority of women live in
villages weighed down by feudal
oppression that takes many forms.
Intense economic exploitation, crude
and brutal social oppression, a culture
that not only denies her independence
but also denigrates her in all possible
manners. Hence, women from the
oppressed classes have had a stake in
the destruction of the feudal rural order
and have come forward to do so.
In the anti-feudal peasant struggles
in the past century women have played
a very militant and active role. In the
Tebhaga struggle in the 1940s the
participation of women was very high
and Nari Bahinis were formed for self-
defence when state repression began.
In the Telengana peasant uprising from
1947 to 1951 too women participated
in large numbers and peasant and tribal
women became guerrilla squad
members and there are many accounts
of the bravery and tenacity displayed
by these women in the face of
encirclement by the Indian Army, in the
face of torture and sure death. Thus
30
when the Naxalbari uprising took place
in 1967 in North Bengal under the
leadership of Charu Majumdar it is not
surprising that poor peasant women
and girls participated with full
enthusiasm. In the Srikakulam struggle
the participation of women was
remarkable. Women became
commanders of the armed squads and
struck terror in the hearts of the
moneylenders and landlords of the
area. The armed struggle in fact began
after an attack on women by the
goondas of a landlord when they were
on their way to participate in a peasant
conference. The names of the women
martyred in this struggle, women who
preferred to be felled by the bullets of
the armed police rather than surrender
still shine high – Nirmala, Ankamma,
Saraswati. Thus these women defied
their families and society to take on
roles, which directly challenged their
traditionally acceptable roles in society.
They displayed tremendous heroism
and determination to make the anti-
feudal struggle a success. But the
revolutionary movement at this time did
not take up the conscious task of
organizing women’s organizations and
taking up the struggle against
manifestations of patriarchy. In the
face of severe repression these
movements were suppressed.
When communist revolutionaries
regrouped themselves and began
building up the anti-feudal peasant
struggles in the late 1970s once again
there was an upsurge of participation
of women in the struggles. In the plains
of Central Bihar, in the fields and
villages of Telengana (AP) the peasant
movement grew like a storm. Among
the first issues the movement
confronted was the feudal privileges
of the landlords over the wives and
daughters of the labourers working in
their fields, especially of the Dalit
castes. Subject to worst form of
abuses and vulgarities of the landlords’
men, bent down due to starvation and
poverty, these poor women were easy
PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010
prey for the landlords and their
henchmen. Many of the violent
struggles in Bihar and Telengana in the
first part of the peasant movement in
the 70s and 80s was to end this abuse
and molestation, going in the name of
“tradition”. These struggles provided
the background for the growth of the
women’s movement.
The women’s movement has grown
with the growth of armed struggle.
Contrary to general opinion the
launching of armed struggle in the early
80s by the communist revolutionary
forces in various parts of the country,
the militant struggle against feudal
oppression gave the confidence to
peasant women to participate in
struggles in large numbers and then to
stand up and fight for their rights.
Women who constitute the most
oppressed among the oppressed,
poor peasant and landless peasant
women who have lacked not only an
identity and voice but also a name,
have become activists for the women’s
organizations in their villages and
guerrilla fighters. Thus with the spread
and growth of the armed struggle the
women’s mobilization and women’s
organization have also grown leading
to the emergence of this revolutionary
women’s movement, one of the
strongest and most powerful women’s
movement in the country today. But it
is unrecognized and ignored, a ploy
of the ruling classes that will try to
suppress any news and
acknowledgement as long as it can.
Early in the dawn of this new century
remarkable developments are taking
place on the women’s front in India.
Deep in the forests and plains of
Central India, in the backward villages
of Andhra Pradesh and up in the hills
among the tribals in the State, in the
forests and plains of Bihar and
Jharkhand women are getting
organized actively to break the
shackles of feudal patriarchy and make
Contd..... on Page 32
 Let us unitedly fight back the forthcoming fascist attack on
women of Dandakaranya and on the mass organizations!
An appeal by KAMS to fraternal mass organizations, progressive democratic women,
intellectuals, students and all democrats
Dear friends,
Krantikari Adivasi Mahila
Sangathan is working in the
Dandakaranya comprising seven
districts of Maharashtra and
Chhattisgarh with a population of about
40 lakhs. Women comprise about 19
lakhs 88 thousands among them. It is
working in an area where various tribes
like Madia, Muria, Dorla, Rajgond,
Halba, Bathara and many nationalities
are residing. The women here work for
about 16 hours everyday in the fields,
homes, as labourers, gatherers of forest
produce etc. Though they labor day
and night, they are being exploited and
are denied all rights. Feudal patriarchy
is exploiting women’s labour and is
suppressing all their rights. It has
relegated women to a secondary
position in the society. The feudal,
comprador bureaucratic bourgeoisie
ruling classes of our country, with the
backing of the imperialists are directly
responsible for the continuation of
exploitation and oppression of women
as they are the ones who are strongly
entrenching patriarchy in our society.
The revolutionary movement entered
into DK in 1980 in such a social
background.
KAMS is working since three
decades in DK with the aim of
liberating women. It mobilized and led
women in the struggles against forest
officers, paper mill managements,
tendu leaf contractors and the
exploitation, sexual harassment,
atrocities and violence of traders from
plains. It gave a helping hand to young
women who stood against the tribal
patriarchy oppressing them. It gave a
call to the adivasi women to rise under
the leadership of KAMS and fight for
women’s liberation. It gave solid
support to the fraternal organization,
the DAKMS. It mobilized women to
resist the police who came to attack
their villages and chased them away.
KAMS gives full support to the DK
revolutionary movement which is
carried on with the following aims -
‘Land to the tiller’, ‘Forest to the
adivasis’, ‘State Power to the
oppressed people’, ‘Women’s
Liberation’. We work shoulder to
shoulder with our fraternal mass
organizations in the armed struggle and
political propaganda against the
exploitative government and its army.
We participate in the election boycott
actively with the aim of establishing
people’s power as an alternative to the
parliamentary politics in which we have
lost confidence. The ruling classes who
could not tolerate this are perpetuating
brutal violence on the adivasi women.
KAMS supports all the struggles of
the oppressed people against the
exploitative ruling classes, not just in
DK but also in India and abroad. We
support nationality liberation struggles.
We expressed solidarity to the
movement which erupted when
Manorama was killed in Manipur. We
exposed the social fascist communists
who had murdered Tapasi Malik in
Singur. We hailed the militant
participation of women in the people’s
struggles of Nandigram and Lalgarh.
We hailed the Kashmiri women who
raised their voices for Azad Kashmir.
We gave the call to support the fighting
people of Andhra Pradesh. It gathered
public opinion in support of the
demand to release Com. Budhni
Munda (Sheila Didi), the president of
‘Nari Mukthi Sangathan’ by conducting
a signature campaign.
Unofficial ban is continuing in
Maharashtra on KAMS from 1991.
The government tried to hamper the
activities of KAMS from 1991 to 1993
by using TADA against it. POTA was
brought in 2002. From then on,
unofficial is continuing under MCOCA
in Maharashtra. Before the formation
of Chhattisgarh, the Madhya Pradesh
PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010
government has been observing Anti-
terrorist day from May 1992 and has
been continuing unofficial ban on all
revolutionary mass organizations since
then. The Central government had
banned the revolutionary mass
organizations KAMS and DAKMS and
Bal Sangams (Children’s organization)
on April 19, 2005 under the Central
government’s Unlawful Activities
Preventive Act.
Within a month of assuming office
the Central government had banned the
CPI (Maoist) on June 20, 2009 under
the Unlawful Activities Preventive Act
(UAPA), a new fascist Act. A
revolutionary women’s organization
which believes in the politics
propagated by that party was also not
spared from the ban. That ban is
continuing on our organization too.
The state unleashed terror on us
from 1990. Thousands of adivasi
women were incarcerated under
TADA between 1990 and 1995.
Chaithe Pallo was an ordinary adivasi
woman who is undergoing life sentence
from 2004 October. She was booked
under TADA in 1991. Adivasi women
who had never left their villages had to
go to Rajnandgaon, Nagpur,
Chandrapur etc. for hearings of TADA
cases. Women underwent untold
sufferings in the Jagdalpur, Dantewada,
Amaravathi, Chandrapur and Nagpur
jails. Missings of KAMS activists had
started by 1993. There is still no trace
of Tara, Pramila, Sukbatti and
Jayawanta who had gone missing still.
The Feudal representatives like
Kalma Masalu (Mahendra Karma)
who could not tolerate the KAMS
which had challenged their tribal feudal
authority and patriarchy, tried to crush
it under their feet in the name of Jan
Jagran. Women had resisted and
withstood the two Jan Jagran
campaigns of 1990 and 1997. From
June 2005, Jan Jagran changed its face.
31
In the name of ‘Salwa Judum’ it is
hounding and killing us like a man-eater.
It turned us into homeless people in
Dantewada, Bastar and Bijapur.
Home, field, hut, paths, trees, shrubs -
no place was safe for us. The Judum
goons pounced on us like hungry
wolves and bled us literally. The Naga,
Mizo and CRPF forces cut our bodies
into pieces. The fact that one or more
women were raped in almost all the
families shows the scale of the sexual
violence perpetrated on us. Our bodies
were cut, our breasts were cut, our
private parts were pierced with sharp
weapons and the wombs of pregnant
women were cut open with bayonets.
As if this was not enough now the state
is readying itself for a massive
offensive against us.
Many intellectuals and democrats
had stood by us in defeating the fascist
Salwa Judum offensive of the
exploitative ruling classes. The
‘Committee against Violence on
Women’ along with other women
formed an All India Women’s team and
toured in Dantewada district and gave
press statements condemning the
fascist violence on us. The members
of National Commission for Women
condemned the sexual atrocities and
violence on the women in Rahath
Sibirs . Any little support from
anybody who stood by us in these
difficult times gave us a lot of
confidence.
People say suppression always
leads to resistance. If we do not defeat
Salwa Judum, there is no protection
for us. If we do not fight we can never
defend the rights we have won in these
25 years of struggle. We learnt to fight
while being in the battle field.
From the time of elections to
Chhattisgarh assembly in 2008
November till the completion of Lok
Sabha elections in May 2009, more
than 500 companies of para-military
forces were deployed in DK.
Presently elections to Maharashtra
assembly are taking place. The Chief
Minister Ashok Chavan and Home
Minister Jayant Patil are asking the
32
Centre to send eight battalions of army
to the state. They are giving statements
that they would form Adivasi
Battalions and Koya Battalions.
Already forces like C-60 and STF are
present in Maharashtra and
Chhattisgarh respectively. The Grey
hounds from neighboring state of AP
are already raiding our villages and
hounding us. The Grey hounds are the
cruel force of AP who had killed
hundreds of revolutionaries and
people, especially hundreds of women
too. They are not just confining
themselves to AP, but are also entering
the neighbouring Odisha and
Chhattisgarh states and perpetuating
killings and gang rapes. They were in
the forefront in suppressing the
women’s movement in AP by killing
women activists and women leaders.
This notorious force which had gang
raped adivasi women in Vakapalli is
now coming to DK to suppress the
women’s movement here too. The
deployment of COBRA battalions built
with the sole aim of wiping out the
revolutionary movement has started.
In the borders of Dantewada and AP,
Contd..... from Page 30
the new democratic revolution. It is a
women’s liberation movement of
peasant women in rural India, a part
of the people’s war being waged by
the oppressed peasantry under
revolutionary leadership. For the past
few years thousands of women are
gathering in hundreds of villages to
celebrate March 8. Women are
gathering together to march through
the streets of a town like Narayanpur
to oppose the Miss World beauty
contest, they are marching with their
children through the tehsil towns and
market villages in backward Bastar to
demand proper schooling for their
children. They are blocking roads to
protest against rape cases, and
confronting the police to demand that
the sale of liquor be banned. And
hundreds of young women are
becoming guerrilla fighters in the army
PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010
two battalions have been deployed.
The trio of Sonia-Man Mohan-
Chidambaram is the main leader behind
this offensive.
The central and state governments
are issuing statements that they would
start the offensive after Diwali. With the
sole aim of wiping out the revolutionary
movement the police and para military
forces are perpetuating all kinds of
atrocities on us. They are resorting to
bloody massacres with the evil design
of wiping out the very existence of our
Koya community in order to loot the
natural resources which are abundant
in our areas.
We request all democratic women,
mass organizations and people to stand
by us in all manners you can by
condemning this unjustified, inhuman,
undemocratic and cruel offensive
which the exploitative ruling classes are
planning to launch against us.
In solidarity,
Krantikari Adivasi Mahila
Sangathan (KAMS)
Dandakaranya. October, 2009.
of the oppressed, throwing off the
shackles of their traditional life of
drudgery. Dressed in fatigues, a red
star on their olive green caps, a rifle
on their shoulders, these young
women brimming with the confidence
that the fight against patriarchy is
integrally linked to the fight against the
ruling classes of this semi-feudal, semi-
colonial India and are equipping
themselves with the military knowledge
to take on the third largest army of the
exploiters . This is a social and political
awakening among the poorest of the
poor women in rural India. It is a
scenario that has emerged far from the
unseeing eyes of the bourgeois media,
far from the flash and glitter of TV
cameras. They are the signs of a
transformation coming into the lives of
the rural poor as they participate in
the great struggle for revolution.
PM
 WOMEN AGAINST SEXUAL VIOLENCE AND STATE REPRESSION
Overview: In October, 2009,
about 25 organisations from across
India met in Bhopal to address the
increasingly rampant use of sexual
violence as a method of State
repression. While women’s
organisations in states under the AFSPA
have long protested the gory list of
rapes, murders and disappearances of
women in their regions, the State, rather
than heed the call of justice and contain
its security forces and police, is
continuing its violence on women’s
bodies as a method of intimidating
communities across even more regions
of India. Even as the women of
Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur,
Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland,
Tripura and Jammu & Kashmir
continue to reel under the ongoing
brutalities committed by both the
armed forces and the insurgents, the
deployment of the paramilitary, the
army regiments and the state police
commando units in substantial parts of
Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh,
Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh,
Maharashtra, Orissa and West Bengal
makes a mockery of the State’s
Constitutional commitment to protect
its own citizens.
Under the broad banner of
“Women against Sexual Violence and
State Repression” we have come
together to strongly and unitedly say
“NO ....NOWHERE....NEVER...and
NOT ON ANY PRETEXT” to sexual
violence against women.
We demand that the State take
immediate and active steps to stop the
sexual violence against women across
the country- through conflict resolution
and through containing its armed
forces. In this Centenary year of 8th
March - International Women’s Day
we would like this cry to rage from
struggling women all over the country.
As a part of our campaign’s
strategy of women physically gathering
and publicly protesting in areas that are
under active armed deployment by the
State, we, together with women’s
organisations in Chhattisgarh, held a
Convention in Raipur on 12-13
December, 2009. Now, in deeper
solidarity and with more voice, intent
and power, this national Campaign is
concretely moving forward to show
our opposition to the ongoing violence
against our sisters in the Northeast of
India. If justice is to be served, we
need a strong and powerful
coalescence of women across India to
prevent more rapes and sexual torture
of women by the armed forces and
police, to punish those guilty and to
ensure that the State does not turn a
blind eye to its own agencies’ gross
violation of women’s right to a life
without violence.
INVITATION!!!! TO OUR NEXT
MEETING
You are invited to participate in our
next meeting on 6-8 May, 2010 in
Imphal, Manipur. This meeting is jointly
hosted by various women’s rights
organisations of the North-East.
Starting with the landmark Nupilal
(Women’s War, the first organized
women’s protest) in 1904, these
organisations have been very alert,
brave and vocal in protesting against
the unabated and unresolved violence
dominant in the seven North-eastern
Indian states for nearly 40 years.
Civilian freedom has been oppressively
curtailed in these states and security
forces have been given special powers
and significant immunity in all their
violations. Despite the 2005 report of
the Ministry of Home Affairs explicitly
and unequivocally calling for both the
PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010
repeal of the AFSPA (1958) and
significant amendments to the UAPA
(1967, amended 2004), innumerable
women continue to be subject to sexual
violence, rape, abduction and killing;
many youth and children don’t know
a life away from violence. It is time
society across India wakes up to the
injustices meted to these societies
through sheer civilian indifference,
State callousness, Union ineffectiveness
and army brutality. Your physical
presence here is a statement of
solidarity with our sisters in the North-
east in asking for judicial justice,
executive fair play and legislative
accountability in the dealings of the
State and to ensure peace and order
in all areas of the Indian Union.
Contributions: You can also support
us by sending a money order or
cheque to this Campaign; receipts will
be provided. This is a non-funded
grassroots effort by women from
across India to stem the violence being
perpetrated upon our bodies and on
our societies both by the State’s forces
and by the inability of our government
to resolve conflict in a meaningful,
sustainable and effective manner.
Please contact Rinchin
(rinchin@gmail.com), Arati
(aratichokshi@gmail.com), Sree
(saheliwomen@gmail.com) or your
local representative to join us, endorse
this call and/or to contribute monies.
Women against Sexual Violence
and State Repression
As represented by: AIPWA, AISA
(Delhi), APDR (West Bengal), Action
India, All Tripura Indigenous and
Minority Association, Alternate Law
Forum, Baiga Mahapanchayat
(Chhattisgarh), Bhopal Gas Peedit
Mahila Udyog Sangathan, Committee
against Violence on Women (Tamil
Contd..... on Page 38
33
 Excerpts from Tehelka Tapes on Gujarat Genocide
Zero tolerance to Maoists but how much more tolerance
for the proven murderers in saffron clothing?
Citizens for Justice and Peace
(CJP) held a press conference on
March 22, 2010 to release portions
of Tehelka tapes of the Sting
Operations related to Narendra Modi’s
direct involvement in the genocide of
Muslims in 2002.
The exposure of the extrajudicial
confessions of Tehelka’s Operation
Kalank (October 25-27 2007)
unequivocally established the direct
role of chief minister Narendra Modi
in directing and masterminding the
massacre. These tapes have been
authenticated by the CBI under direct
orders of the National Human Rights
Commission. Both the Gujarat High
Court and the Supreme Court of India
directed that they be used as evidence
at the appropriate time. The detailed
and extremely courageous exposure by
Tehelka and its then correspondent
Ashish Khetan also point to the
involvement of several persons in the
conspiracy to commit mass murder
and economic destruction.
Summons was issued to chief
minister Narendra Modi on charges of
mass murder and criminal conspiracy.
The criminal justice system in our so-
called democracy would do
everything to acquit the real criminals
in positions of power and punish
innocent or petty criminals. It is
necessary for every civil rights activist
and democratic individual to
understand the criminal justice system
if only to realize the need to overthrow
it lock, stock and barrel. No more
proof will be required to hang mass
murderer Narendra Modi than the
evidences given by his own men even
if unknowingly in the sting operation
conducted by Tehelka in 2007.
However, the criminal justice system
in our country totally biased in favour
of the affluent and influential sections
will never deliver justice to the victims.
34
We reproduce some of the excerpts
from the Tehelka tapes released at a
press conference on March 22, 2010
by the CJP in public interest. These
portions expose (a) the arms and
bombs distribution in different parts of
Gujarat before the Godhra incident i.e.
February 27 2002 and b) the direct
or indirect role of Narendra Modi
alleged by BJP and VHP/Bajrang Dal
cades on camera that amount to extra
judicial confessions. In a CJP invitation
to the press conference its secretary
Teesta Setalvad explained the main
exposures in the tapes as follows:
Tehelka’s Operation Kalank
Modi’s Role
I. BABU BAJRANGI (PATEL)
Role in Massacre
Modi’s Role In Helping
Bajrangi Abscond
Bajrangi also speaks of -How
Police Machinery was made
ineffective on Modi’s
Instructions
Manipulation of the Judiciary
2. ARVIND PANDYA
State Government Lawyer
“Modi Nahi Hota To Kuch
Nahi Hota”
Modi’s Role in Subverting Entire
Criminal Justice System
3. DHIMANT BHAT
Accountant MS University
Speaks of Modi’s Direct Role & pressure from higher quarters
VHP Meeting on Night of
February 27, 2002 planning the
post Godhra Conspiracy
4. HARESH BHATT
former MLA Godhra
Speaks of Three Days given by
Modi to do as they will
5. RAJENDRA VYAS
VHP Ahmedabad City
President
PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010
In charge of Train (Sabaramati
Express) speaks of the
behaviour on board the train
6. SURESH RICHARD
CHARA from NARODA
PATIA (AN ACCUSED)
Modi’s Visit to Patia on evening
of February 28 2002 to garland
murderers and rapists saying
they have accomplished a
wonderful job.
7. DHAWAL PATEL
VHP ZILLA SANJOYAK
SABARKANTHA
Speaks of Arms Distribution
prior to the Godhra Train Burning
Pointing to A Conspiracy
8. ANIL PATEL
Gujarat VHP Vibhag Pramukh
Arms Distribution prior to the
Godhra Train Burning Pointing
to A Conspiracy
Not only did the Modi government
allow the mob fury to continue
unabated, it also tried to shelter the
perpetrators from the law. Modi
himself arranged for Babu Bajrangi,
the prime accused in the Naroda Patiya
case, to stay at Gujarat Bhavan in
Mount Abu, and transferred two
judges to help Bajrangi get bail
Since the police were in control all
over Gujarat, Modi instructed them to
side with the Hindus, thus giving the
rioters a free hand for three days until
necessitated the calling in of the army.
Now we reproduce some excerpts
from the Tehelka tapes:
SURESH RICHARD CHARA (accused
in Naroda Patia Massacre)
Richard: [On the day of the massacre]
we did whatever we did till quite late
in the evening… at around 7.30…
around 7.15, our Modibhai came…
Right here, outside the house… My
sisters garlanded him with roses…
TEHELKA: Narendrabhai Modi
Richard: Narendra Modi… He came
with black commandos… got down
from his Ambassador car and walked
up here…. All my sisters garlanded
him… a big man is a big man after all…
TEHELKA: He came out on the
road?
Richard: Here, near this house…
Then he went this way… Looked at
how things were in Naroda…
TEHELKA: The day the Patiya
incident happened…
Richard: The same evening…
TEHELKA: February 28…
Richard: 28…
TEHELKA: 2002…
Richard: He went around to all the
places… He said our tribe was
blessed… He said our mothers were
blessed [for bearing us]…
TEHELKA: He came at about 5
o’clock or at 7?
Richard: Around 7 or 7.30… At that
time there was no electricity…
Everything had been burnt to ashes in
the riots…Richard: We’d finished
burning everything and had returned…
That was when the police called us…
They said some Muslims were hiding
in this sewer… When we went there,
we saw their houses had been
completely burned down but seven or
eight of them had hidden in the gutter…
We shut the lid on it… If we’d gone in
after them, we might have been in
danger… We closed the lid and
weighted it down with big boulders…
Later, they found eight or ten corpses
in there… They’d gone there to save
their lives, but... they died of the gases
down there… This happened in the
evening… the dhamal [killing spree]
went till night, till about 8.30…
TEHELKA: So you went in again….
Richard:We were inside… By
evening, things had cooled down… We
were tired also… After all, a man gets
tired out… Hurling stones, beating with
pipes, stabbing, all this… The way we
came out from inside could only be
done by a man of strong heart…
Richard: Mayaben was moving
around all day in an open jeep…
TEHELKA: On the day of the Patiya
massacre…
Richard: [She was saying] Jai Shri
Ram, Jai Shri Ram… wearing a saffron
headband… She kept raising slogans…
She said, carry on with your work, I’m
here [to protect you]… She was
wearing a white sari and had on a
saffron band… I had also tied on a
saffron band…
TEHELKA: It is being said the
Chharas also committed rapes…
Richard: Now look, one thing is true…
bhookhe ghuse to koi na koi to phal
khayega, na [when thousands of
hungry men go in, they will eat some
fruit or the other, no]… Aise bhi, phal
ko kuchal ke phek denge [in any case,
the fruit are going to be crushed and
thrown away]... Look, I’m not telling
lies… Mata is before me [gesturing
to an image of a deity]… Many
Muslim girls were being killed and
burnt to death anyway, some people
must have helped themselves to the
fruit…
TEHELKA: There must have been a
couple of rapes…
Richard: Might even have been
more… then there were the rest of our
brothers, our Hindu brothers, VHP
people and RSS people… Anyone
could have helped themselves… who
wouldn’t, when there’s fruit?… The
more you harm them, the less it is… I
really hate them… don’t want to spare
them… Look, my wife is sitting here
but let me say…the fruit was there so
it had to be eaten… I also ate… I also
ate… I ate once
TEHELKA: Just once?
Richard: Just once… then I had to go
killing again… [turns to relative
Prakash Rathod and talks about the
girl he had raped and killed]… That
PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010
scrap-dealer’s girl, Naseemo…
Naseemo that juicy plump one… I got
on top…
TEHELKA: You got on top of her…
Richard: Yes, properly…
TEHELKA: She didn’t survive, did
she?
Richard: No, then I pulped her…
Made her into a pickle…
BABU BAJRANGI
What They Said About Modi
‘To Get Me Out On Bail,
Narendrabhai Changed Judges Thrice’
Transcript (EXCERPT): BABU
BAJRANGI
Modi has a definite soft spot for the
man who would later stall the film
Parzania. The regard is mutual
AUGUST 10, 2007
TEHELKA: The day Patiya
happened, didn’t Modi support you?
Bajrangi: He made everything all right,
otherwise who would have had the
strength... It was his hand all the way...
If he’d told the police to do differently,
they would have f****d us.... they
could have... they had full control…
TEHELKA: They had control?
Bajrangi: They were very much in
control all over the city, all over
Gujarat… [But] for two days,
Narendrabhai was in control… from
the third day… a lot of pressure came
from the top… Sonia-wonia and all
came here…
TEHELKA: Didn’t Narendrabhai
come to meet you [in jail]?
Bajrangi: If Narendrabhai comes to
meet me, he’ll be in deep trouble… I
didn’t expect to see him… Even today,
I don’t expect it…
TEHELKA: Did he ever talk to you
over the phone?
Bajrangi: That way I do get to speak
to him… but not just like that… The
whole world starts singing…
TEHELKA: But when you were
absconding, then he…..
35
Bajrangi: Hmm… I did speak to him
twice or thrice…
TEHELKA: He’d encourage you…
Bajrangi: Marad aadmi hai [he’s a
real man], Narendrabhai… If he were
to tell me to tie a bomb to myself and
jump... it wouldn’t take even a
second… I could sling a bomb around
me and jump wherever I was asked
to… for Hindus…
TEHELKA: Had he not been
there,then Naroda Patiya, Gulbarg
etc…
Bajrangi:Wouldn’t have
happened.Would’ve been very
difficult.
SEPTEMBER 1, 2007
TEHELKA: Did Narendrabhai come
to Patiya the day of the massacre?
Bajrangi: Narendrabhai came to
Patiya… He could not make it to the
place of the incidents because there
were commando-phamandos with
him… But he came to Patiya, saw our
enthusiasm and went away… He left
behind a really good atmosphere…
TEHELKA: Said you were all
blessed…
Bajrangi: Narendrabhai had come to
see that things didn’t stop the next
day… He went all around
Ahmedabad, to all the places where
the miyas [Muslims] were, to the Hindu
areas… told people they’d done well
and should do more…
Bajrangi: [After the massacre] the
commissioner issued orders [against
me]… I was told to leave my home…
I ran away… Narendrabhai kept me
at… the Gujarat Bhavan at Mount Abu
for fourand- a-half months… After that,
[I did] whatever Narendrabhai told me
to… Nobody can do what
Narendrabhai has done in - Gujarat…
If I did not have the support of
Narendrabhai, we would not have
been able to avenge [Godhra]…
[After it was over,] Narendrabhai was
happy, the people were happy, we
were happy… I went to jail and came
36
back… and returned to the life I’d led
before.
Bajrangi: Narendrabhai got me out of
jail…… He kept on changing judges….
He set it up so as to ensure my release,
otherwise I wouldn’t have been out
yet... The first judge was one
Dholakiaji... He said Babu Bajrangi
should be hanged — not once, but
four-five times, and he flung the file
aside... Then came another who
stopped just short of saying I should
be hanged… Then there was a third
one… By then, four-and-a-half months
had elapsed in jail; then Narendrabhai
sent me a message... saying he would
find a way out... Next he posted a
judge named Akshay Mehta… He
never even looked at the file or
anything…. He just said [bail was]
granted… And we were all out... We
were free….. For this, I believe in
God… We are ready to die for
Hindutva...
Haresh Bhatt (a Bajrang Dal leader):
He had given us three days… to do
whatever we could. He said he would
not give us time after that… He said
this openly...After three days, he asked
us to stop and everything came to a
halt…
TEHELKA: It stopped after three
days… Even the army was called in.
Bhatt: All the forces came… We had
three days… and did what we had to
in those three days...
TEHELKA: Did he say that?
Bhatt: Yes… That is why I am saying
he did what no chief minister can do…
TEHELKA: Did he speak to you?
Bhatt: I told you that we were at the
meeting.
and the upper castes too have come
out now in support of the Parivar…
Bhatt: In Ahmedabad, there were two
persons… I won’t tell you the place…
that is secret… it is the Parivar’s… In
Ahmedabad, the party has a
farmhouse… we started… supplying
everything… made a plan… If the
PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010
police makes arrests, then [we were
to secure] the release [of those in
custody]. That night, we sat up and
made a panel of advocates… If Hindus
were injured, then how to take them
to hospitals… how we were to help…
We made the whole plan… to start a
Hindu jehad… we were successful in
Gujarat… We were thinking what
should we do… so we got three-foot
long iron rods… iron bars, and if the
cadre was from the Bajrang Dal, then
trishuls… In other words, we made a
plan and supplied the samaan
[weapons]… it was very necessary…
After we supplied the samaan, the
Hindus got very motivated… Until
Godhra happened, the upper castes
would never come out… Baniyas…
Patels… they would never come out…
But we mobilised them… told them
that we had prepared teams from the
police and amongst advocates… that
if they went to jail, we would get them
released…
Conspirators & Rioters
‘The Idea Came From Modi Himself’
Transcript: DHIMANT BHATT
The chief auditor of MS University,
Bhatt reveals the minute planning and
mobilisation that went into the attacks
MAY 19, 2007
Dhimant Bhatt: I have two charges…
I am chief auditor for the entire
university [MSU] as well as chief
accounts officer… this is a financial
matter… everybody needs funds…
this is why it is hectic… I am a staunch
Hindu… suppose somebody from the
Sangh says we have to promote Hindu
fundamentalism, I will be the first to
volunteer… I will go and say, brothers,
put the Sangh’s lathis aside and pick
up AK-56s … pick up AK-56s
because if you have to develop
Hinduism, it is clear who the enemies
are… There are two who are against
Hinduism… Muslims, who are open…
but the Christians… they are like a
bacterial virus … and there’s a third,
the Communists, who are developing
now… red waale… If you have to
fight them, you need power and that
power will not come from the lathi…
only the bullet will do… we go to RSS
shakhas … pick up the lathi and use
it… All that is fine but now they should
be replaced with AKs and a Hindu
brigade should be formed…
HARESH BHATT, who was the
Bajrang Dal Rashtriya Sah Sanyojak
in 2002 and is now the BJP MLA from
Godhra, till the riots a Congress
stronghold, made a never-before
admission that bombs were made at a
firecracker factory he owned. He
describes how they assembled
country-made explosives, including
rocket launchers. These were then
distributed to murderous mobs in
Ahmedabad
IN 2002, despite curfew in
Ahmedabad, swords were brought in
from Punjab and country pistols from
UP, Bihar and MP. Bhatt boasts that
none of these states were under BJP
Contd..... from Page 21
rulers. We all know how the saffron
brigade is poisoning the minds of the
young both in its own private schools
as well as government schools where
it is in power. By misusing state
machinery and government funds, and
100 per cent tolerance exhibited by
the central government, the most
unscientific and chauvinist education is
taught that preaches absolute religious
intolerance, the RSS concept of
Akhand Bharat and unbridled jingoism
to the children poisoning their minds.
The entire education system itself
reflects the unjust socio-economic
system producing elitist, individualist,
undemocratic, feudal, colonial and
selfish values among the children to
create servile, snobbish, self-seeking
individuals who have only contempt for
manual work and the toiling masses.
So one can understand what would be
the end product of the RTE to the
extent it is implemented within the
framework of the existing socio-
economic system. PM
rule then. The consignment of arms VHP leader Anil Patel says even
crossed the borders not once but many Congress workers joined in the attacks,
times. “There were tens and tens of and that senior police officers were
them,” Bhatt reveals very helpful
IN AN UNRELATED but crucial TEHELKA: How were the activists
disclosure, Bhatt says that he trained motivated?
40 young men who then went on to
Patel: The incident was being repeated
demolish the Babri Masjid in
on TV. The killing of the karsevaks was
December 1992. He trained them like
being played and replayed [throughout
the army does, and ran obstacle
the day]. All of us, including the
courses for them and taught them how
Congressmen felt that we [Hindus] had
to climb a 30-ft rope. The camp still
been attacked. They did everything
exists in Ahmedabad
alongside us, even triggered the bomb
DHAWAL JAYANTI PATEL of the
to demolish the mosque …
VHP used dynamite in his quarries in
TEHELKA: In Ahmedabad, bombs
Sabarkantha. With the help of an old
were made in Hareshbhai’s own
RSS hand, Amrudh Patel, who was an
factory. How did it work here?
expert in handling explosives, bombs
Patel: There are a lot of boring
were made in the quarries using
industries here, because of which
dynamite and RDX-based powder
dynamite is available… Then, we also
ANIL PATEL, the VHP Vibhag
had some experts. They made
pramukh, talks of how explosives were
[explosives] and supplied them to
made in Sabarkantha and then supplied
Ahmedabad as well… PM
to Ahmedabad.
Contd..... from Page 44
wealth, the focus of this joint offensive led by the central forces under the direct
supervision of fascist Chidambaram is to eliminate the Maoist leadership in the
country. In a similar episode last may, comrade Patel Sudhakar, a member of
the central committee of CPI (Maoist), was abducted and murdered in cold
blood by the APSIB-Grey Hound goons. Central leaders like Ashutosh, Kobad
Ghandy, Balraj and Chintanji were arrested and placed behind bars, along with
several state Party leaders in the past one year. Popular mass leaders like
Lalmohan Tudu of PCAPA are murdered in cold blood and Chhatradhar Mahato
arrested on false charges. Even those who question police atrocities and the
state’s brutal onslaught against innocent people, civil liberties and human rights
activists, sincere Gandhians and other social activists, are not spared the rod.
Private vigilante gangs are set up in all areas where the Maoist movement is
strong and indiscriminate attacks are unleashed on unarmed adivasi people.
Let us pay our red revolutionary homage to comrades Sakhamuri Appa
Rao and Kondal Reddy by pledging to carry forward their cherished dreams
with redoubled determination and relentless spirit. Let us vow to avenge their
martyrdom by defeating the biggest country-wide brutal armed offensive
unleashed by the comprador-feudal ruling classes backed by imperialists,
transform PLGA into PLA, guerrilla war into mobile war, and guerrilla zones
into base areas. Let us train up thousands of able Red successors to our beloved
martyred leaders. Let us foil the desperate attempts by the reactionary rulers
to deprive the Indian people and the CPI (Maoist) of their leadership by
preserving our leading cadres and developing innumerable Maoist leaders from
the oppressed masses of India. Azad, Spokesperson,
Central committee, CPI (Maoist)
PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010 37
 Vedanta continues to dole out lies emboldened by
Chidambaram’s absolute support
The story of Vedanta is also the story of Chidambaram: both survive on advertisements, paid news and endless lies.
The ex-member of Vedanta’s Board of Directors becomes a vedantist and says his Operation Green Hunt is an illusion,
a myth invented by the media even as hundreds of unarmed innocent adivasis are murdered by his mercenary forces,
voiceless helpless adivasi women are gang-raped by his “security” forces, and hundreds of thousands are driven away
from their homes fearing uninterrupted attacks by these trigger-happy goons. And the Union Home Minister’s mentor,
Vedanta, spends huge sums to project itself as the benefactor of adivasis. An entire page of advertisement on VEDANTA’s
“good deeds” appeared in almost all English dailies on March…2010. The advertisement talks of building schools,
hospitals, roads, providing job opportunities, and on how this multi-national fraud is changing the lives of the poor. The
language is hundred per cent same as that used by Chidambaram when he spoke at a press conference after the chief
ministers’ conference on February 7. The biggest liar of the decade, Chidambaram, said: “I have asked the Chief
Ministers of the naxal-affected states to rush in with developmental work like schools, roads, hospitals, drinking
water, job opportunities…..” This, despite the fact that the vast majority of the people in the Indian countryside is
surviving on a meager Rs. 20 a day and suffers from chronic hunger, malnutrition, diarrheal diseases due to complete
unavailability or acute scarcity of drinking water, unemployment, and extreme misery. 50 hunger-deaths in Orissa,
several more in MP run newspaper headlines. Yet, these are of no concern to the hypocrite who head the Union Home
Ministry who continues to assure that everything would be well if the Maoist monsters are decimated and the territories
under their control reclaimed.
Four European investors have already pulled out of Vedanta by selling off their stakes in the company citing “serious
concern about its approach to human rights and the environment.” The latest to pull out of this multi-billion swindler is
United Kingdom-based Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust which sold off its 2.2-million pound stake in Vedanta. A week
prior to this, the Church of England decided to sell off its 2.1 million pound stake. The first high-profile withdrawal was
from the Norwegian government’s pension fund which sold its $13 million stake in 2007, while the Martin Curie Investment
sold its 2.3 pound stake last year. The objections raised by these trusts to the unethical activities of Vedanta are interesting.
According to a news report published in the third week of February this year, Susan Seymour, chair of the investment
committee at the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, has charged the unethical acts of this multi-billion fraud in unequivocal
terms: “We have heard first-hand about Vedanta’s environmental and human rights abuses in Orissa and believe
that Vedanta is pushing industrialization to the detriment of the lives and lands of the local people. This behavior
may be legal, but is morally indefensible.”
There is a lot that our Man Mohans, Chidambarams, Naveen Patnaiks, Raman Singhs, Buddhadebs and other
comprador agents of imperialists have to learn from these foreign companies. While these companies are opposing
Vedanta, our own so-called Indians ruling our country are cringing before Vedanta and acting like boot-lickers.
Chidambaram, of course, would say that all these charges against Vedanta are a myth. As much of a myth as the OGH.
Contd..... from Page 33
Nadu), CPDR (Maharashtra), Madhya Pradesh Mahila Manch, NBA Vedike (Karnataka), Sangini (Madhya
Campaign for Justice and Peace (Madhya Pradesh), Namma Manasa Pradesh), Vanangana (Uttar Pradesh),
(Karnataka), Chhattisgarh Mahila (Karnataka), Nari Mukti Sanstha Vidyarthi Yuvjan Sabha, Women’s
Adhikar Manch, Chhattisgarh Mahila (Delhi), Navsarjan Sanstha (Gujarat), Right Resource Center (Madhya
Mukti Morcha, Dalit Adivasi Manch Naya Chhattisgarh Mahila Sangh, Pradesh), Yuva Samvaad (Madhya
(Chhattisgarh), Dalit Stree Shakti Nirantar (Delhi), PSSK (Chhattisgarh), Pradesh), Stree Adhikar Sanghatan
(Andhra Pradesh), HumAnE (Orissa), Patel Pat Chaunki (Chhattisgarh), (Uttar Pradesh), Stree Jagruti Samiti,
HRLN (Madhya Pradesh), Hengasara Pratidhwani (Delhi), PUCL Trade Union Solidarity Committee
Hakkina Sangha (Karnataka), Human (Karnataka), Rachna Manch, Rohidas (Maharashtra), Women Against
Rights Alert (Manipur), IRMA
Mahila Kalyan Samiti (Chhattisgarh), Militarization and State Violence (The
(Manipur), IWID, Jagori (Delhi), Jagrit
Saheli (Delhi), Sahmet (Madhya Other Media), Women’s Right
Adivasi Dalit Sangathan (Madhya
Pradesh), Samajwadi Jan Parishad Resource Center, Women’s Education
Pradesh), Jan Jagruti Manch
(Madhya Pradesh), Samata Vedike Forum (Chhattisgarh), and many
(Chhattisgarh), Lalgarh Morcha,
Lokayata (Maharashtra), MARA, (Karnataka), Samanatha Mahila individuals. PM
38 PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010
 Tribal unrest
Provider as marauder
As the people of Junglemahal drift close to desperation, it is the state that is to blame
Soumitra Basu
From THE SUNDAY INDIAN, 4 April 2010
An epic is being enacted, or an apology of it! Chidambaram started it, with a number -72
hours, Kishenji retorted with another unit – days…. Nothing came of it. Neither took it seriously.
Both procrastinated. This is a fine management technique one that creates huge media hype
and thus social capital is formed. Things did not change but perceptions did. Junglemahal is
now a name, more than Nandigram.
People die or are dying, get raped, jailed, evicted and, of course, they are threatened on a
quotidian basis. Lalmohan Tudu was bumped off in an encounter. His crime? A highly dangerous
conspiracy against the state and the system – he was running a local hospital on the people’s
initiative. Compassion is extremely dangerous when people are the target. Police officers are
disappearing too. Retaliation is often swift. The cycle goes on, on and on, the idyllic but
somber rainforest is now bloodied. And procrastination is the response.
700 villages have been flattened and wiped out ostensibly for “development” – for mining important national resources.
“National interest” serves city-dwelling billionaires who compete in the global arena. It will never serve the people in the
nation-state. A rainforest does not have capital value and is, therefore, dispensable. People who live and who produce
through their toil and let the wealthy live off their resources generated through indirect taxes, do not have a voice or
opinion in a “in a democracy”. The voice that matters is that of those whose “national interest’ is served.
Liberals and “independent” think tanks are clamoring about a colossal breakdown of an ostensible perfect development
regime. A haven of representational neurocracy that we advertise as the best liberal model laments that people of the
rainforest are now mere victims of neglect and corruption! What a revelation! Ask Lalita Tudu, thoroughly determined
daughter of Lalmohun. She does care a fig for “development” or “administration”.
Ask those ladies who are either already raped or are preys of the future; ask the children whose parents are behind
bars and do not know why; ask those who have lost their generations-old possession to some security mercenaries. Do
they care about how many bore wells may be installed in some future time, or how many health centers and even
schools? People have lived here on their own for millenniums. They expect nothing from the dikus (outsiders). So they
do not appreciate their presence either. Adivasis have seen outsiders coming and going, and robbing them in every such
new move and another thread of continuous stream of wealth outflow starts. These various streams of dikus of different
races and people have now congealed into an all-powerful state. The state is now institutionalized diku. These people
had to be subdued, imprisoned, strangled and dishonoured. “Development” follows the same track. The people of the
rainforest and Junglemahal are fighting the war their predecessors had started millenniums back.
Dignity is all they want, dignity for the domiciled, dignity as human beings and dignity as producers. They are hardly
swayed human beings and dignity as producers. They are hardly swayed by the lollipops of jobs, doles, “development”
and, least of all, bore-wells. Binayak Sen, Himanshu Kumar, Anuradha Ghandy, Narayan Sanyal, Jayanta Bhattacharya,
Naba Kumar Biswas are not dikus. They are kakus. The STATE is, the uniform-clad BABUs are, the sahebs in the
white car are and definitely the security authorities are. An Adivasi mother knows who to watch out against and who to
go to as friends. The state comprises of the liberal soothsayers as well, the think-tanks, the academicians, the NGOs, and
all other “individuals” in addition to the four existing pillars we had known. Castes after castes, sections after sections are
joining the ranks of the rebels. Previously Mundas were the rebels, then came the Santhals, then all other denominations
of Vanvasis, then the Mahatos (Koiris) and now the domiciled Biharis and Bengalis. Marx conceived of withering away
of the state. The means were rather mundane: build up mass organizations and render the government –sponsored
institutions irrelevant. Now it is the state that is blasting itself off by unleashing a backlash. The state is the anarchist and
terrorist here, it is pushing the whole populace into rebellion, it is losing all iota of credibility as provider and positing itself
as a marauder.
The ruling establishment at the Centre is not bothered. The Congress has a long enough experience of wading through
waters sullied by themselves. They know how to linger on without solving but creating more complex twists. Our Left
parties have learnt how to parrot and even out-perform the Congress in their game. The people are now realizing this.
There are two ways of looking at the same thing – a state way, and a people way.
(
PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010 39
 State violence in Kalinganagar, Orissa:
Tata sponsors Green Hunt in Kalinganagar to suppress the villagers
protesting against Tata project
The following is a report by Debaranjan Sarangi taken from the Net:
v Orissa government has started war on people in Kalinga Nagar.
v The forces meant for ‘Operation Green Hunt’ like SOG forces were used for this purpose (as per media report
Government of Orissa is formally launching ‘Operation Green Hunt’ from April 2010.)
v This entire mobilization of armed forces in Kalinga Nagar is for construction of common corridor.
v This common corridor is a connecting passage from main road to Tata’s proposed project site
v This would help the administration and police to reach the Tata’s project site without any hindrance from local
villagers.
v Though the government of Orissa says that it would help transporting vehicles for other factories but there is already
a road that exists for their transportation and they are using it.
v Many villagers have not yet received compensation for Tata project and even they are refusing to receive.
v But the government of Orissa has mobilized/deployed 29 platoons of State Armed police, 2 platoons of Special
Operation Groups (SOGs), 70 senior police officers, 7 magistrates besides District collector and Superintendent of
Police at the spot.
v Entire area has been cordoned off and section 144 has been declared.
v Media persons were not permitted to enter those villages and were forced to sit inside the police station. But
photographers hired by the private companies were moving around within police cordon.
v On March 30, police has used 500 round rubber bullets and did blank firing to send the villagers back. When the
people were withdrawing from the area, police chased them up to 3km and came inside Baligotha village.
v Inside Baligotha village, the police has burnt several houses and has beaten many old people.
v Some villagers are injured. Their exact number is yet to be known. Most of them are taking private treatment.
v ‘Bisthanpan Birodhi Janamancha’, which is spearheading the movement in Kalinga Nagar, recently met the
administration on March 28 after the latter invited for the discussion.
v The Mancha placed few things before the Admn, like (a) after Kalinga Nagar firing (on 2nd April 2006 when 14
tribals died for opposing Tata steel project) the Chief Minister has invited and met them twice. But none of the
demands have yet been met. It speaks how far really the government of Orissa is serious about the problem of
Kalingnagar. (b) The Mancha is not opposing the project. But land against land should be given and who are already
displaced by previous projects should be rehabilitated properly.
v Administration has not accepted any of the demands but next day started their ‘war’ on the people.
v Surprisingly, those political parties who were opposing Kalinga Nagar firing and called Orissa bandh on 7th January
2006, are maintaining complete silence.
v Local newspapers are only giving the version of police. None of them has yet carried any interview of one of any
leaders of the Mancha.
Other reports same time Tata goons have assembled
villages. The police stations in Kalinga
A team of senior journalists and at the common corridor construction
Nagar have turned into offices for Tata
activists along with a doctor visited the site near Baligotha and are carrying out
goons and the local mafia. Goons on
villages around Kalinga Nagar. They construction activities. The police are
bikes and in SUVs are patrolling all
report that about 50 people have been spreading rumours about Maoist
roads leading to the villages and are
seriously injured with many having presence in the area to be able to cut
intimidating any unknown person they
these new kind of plastic bullets still off the villages again and attack one
see on the road. Suresh Panigrahi of
lodged in their bodies. more time.
CPI (M) was threatened by the police
On March 31 the police had again as well as the goons and he was not The police had vandalized the 2 Jan
blocked all roads and many people able to reach Baligotha or other 2006 martyrs’ memorials…they have
have been held on their way to the villages that are being targeted. At the destroyed the personal documents of
40 PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010
the people…they have robbed money
from homes… they have destroyed
food stocks and carried away
livestock, and killed cattle. It is as if
we were returning to the medieval
times of plunder and invasions. Two
separate press conferences were held
in Bhubaneswar by those who visited
the area.
*********************************************
Concerned Citizens Committee
on Kalinganagar Firing
Bhubaneswar: March 31, 2010
A citizens’ committee which visited
Baligootha Kalinganagar under the
leadership of Justice Chaudhry Pratap
Mishra ( Retd Judge of Orissa High
Court ) on 30th March, 2010 after
indiscriminate firing against peaceful
protesters of Vistapan Virodhi
Janmanch was reported in the media,
has come across shocking instances of
police and mafia brutality. The
members of the committee which also
included Sri Rabi Das (senior
journalist), Shri Chitta Mohanty (writer
and political activist), Sri Sudhir Patnaik
(senior journalist), Sri Mahendra
Parida, TU and human rights activist,
met the victims of bullet injury in
Baligootha, Chandia and Baragadia
and saw the damages done to the
houses, bovine wealth, food grains,
food articles, motor bikes and cycles
of the villagers.
The Sarpanch of Baligootha
reported before the committee that his
cash and golden chain also have been
stolen from his house apart from the
damage caused to food grains. Dabur
Kalundia, another leader, also deposed
before the team. Rabi Jarika, the leader
of the agitating tribals who had
sustained a bullet injury also narrated
the incidents of the day and the politics
behind the common corridor. The
committee met men, women and
children and about 25 injured persons
including 9 women received treatment
from the senior doctor who
accompanied the committee along with
a team of volunteers.
Observations of the Committee having a field day with good
1. About 30-40 tribals have sustained cooperation of the administration
bullet injuries in the firing and 25 and police.
were treated by the doctor 9. The presence of such a huge force
accompanying the committee. itself threatens the peace of the
Four critically injured persons were area.
in the hospital. Some have bullets 10. The administration does not seem
stuck within their wounds. Though
to be sensitive to the cause of the
it appears to be rubber bullets, the tribal protesters as much as it is
kind of bloody wounds each one concerned for the companies in
of the persons treated has received
Kalinganagar.
does not seem to be the work of
Recommendations
rubber bullets.
1. The Hon’ble Chief Minister should
2. No efforts by the administration to immediately intervene and call an
treat the injured. People don’t wish immediate halt to the controversial
to go out for treatment for fear of common corridor project
torture and arrest.
2. Since the administration has
3. The police firing at the site of the betrayed the people once more a
controversial common corridor dialogue should take place at the
road near Baligootha was highest level with the CM on the
unwarranted and uncalled for and demands of the tribals including the
therefore looks to be preplanned. one calling for land for land. Even
4. 29 platoons of armed police, 2 people owning land in the common
platoons of NSG, 70 police officers corridor have not been consulted.
and 7 magistrates does speak a lot 3. Instead of building police stations
about the firing and also speaks one after another in a small place
about the atmosphere of police with corporate funding the CM
terror prevailing in the area. should ensure that every village
5. The witnesses report that familiar gets developmental inputs
faces in the nearby localities close particularly education, health,
to the ruling party came in police water, social security schemes such
uniform and attacked all houses in as widow pensions all of which
Baligootha. They did not carry have been suspended arbitrarily.
guns. They had swords and other 4. Law should not be taken to hands
deadly weapons in their hand. by any citizens and this law applies
6. Civilian goons in the presence of first to the police administration. All
police could be seen in the place officers, civil and police, involved
in which 144 was declared, as in the firing of 30th March and in
reported by the people. criminal activities such as injecting
a sense of fear among the tribals
7. The houses of leaders of the Manch the day preceding the firing and
have been damaged and all conflicts must be suspended
important articles including food immediately and be subjected to
grains burnt. trial.
8. Agitating and aggrieved tribals are 5. Financial compensation to the tune
spending sleepless nights under of Rs 1 lakh for every person
trees in fear of more attacks, since injured in the firing be given to the
the police, goons of the company victims.
and certain criminal elements Justice Ch.Pratap Mishra(Retd)
associated with the ruling party are
Contd..... on Page 43
PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010 41
 Press Release: April 8, 2010

Hail the daring and the biggest ever guerrilla attack on the hired mercenaries of
the Indian State carried out by the heroic PLGA guerrillas in Chhattisgarh!

Sonia-Manmohan-Chidambaram-Pranab gang is solely responsible for the loss

of lives of CRPF jawans used as cannon-fodder in their dirty war on behalf of a
tiny parasitic corporate elite!!
The heroic PLGA guerrillas led by the CPI (Maoist) have created history by wiping out an entire Company of the
central paramilitary force in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh. The PLGA had wiped out over 80 CRPF mercenaries—
a part of the huge armed mercenary force of over 60 battalions sent by Chidambaram to Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand,
Orissa, West Bengal, Bihar and Maharashtra to carry out the genocide of adivasis. Several more mercenaries were
injured in India’s biggest ever guerrilla attack till date. A huge cache of highly sophisticated arms and ammunition was
seized from these mercenaries that include mortars and LMGs. The CC, CPI (Maoist) sends its heartiest revolutionary
greetings to the brave warriors of PLGA who have given a fitting reply to fraud Chidambaram and nailed his unabashed
naked lie that his brutal Operation Green Hunt is a myth invented by the media.
The Dantewada ambush is a logical culmination of the unending terrible provocation by the uniformed goondas sent
by Chidambaram and Raman Singh to the adivasi areas to create a brutal reign of terror. In just eight months, 114
innocent unarmed adivasi people were abducted, tortured and murdered in cold blood by these uniformed goondas.
Several women were gang-raped by these lawless goons. Neither they nor their khadi-clad bosses have any respect for
the Indian Constitution. They have an unwritten licence to abduct, torture, rape and murder any adivasi or Maoist
without any questions being asked. This dehumanization of the police and paramilitary forces is consciously encouraged
by Chidambaram, Raman Singh, Vishwa Ranjan and others, notwithstanding their holy chants of peace and ahimsa.
Behind their sophisticated-looking rhetoric lie the raw, beastly, cannibalistic passions that devour human beings for
establishing their absolute control over the resources and lives of the people. Their vision goes no farther than that of a
local daroga, as aptly pointed out by a JD (U) spokesperson referring to Chidambaram. And their tactics fare no better
than those of a street rowdy. As long as their fascist mind-set refuses to see the socio-politico-economic roots of
Naxalism and continue to treat it as a disease or a problem while the oppressed people see it increasingly as a
remedy and a solution to their problems, Dantewada-type attacks will continue to take place at an even greater
frequency and intensity.
The atrocities committed by these forces, along with the state-sponsored Salwa Judum goons, Koya commandos
and SPOs in Dantewada and Bijapur, make one shudder (leaving out Chidambaram and his animal species of cobras,
jaguars, greyhounds etc) with horror and repugnance. Besides tales of unending abductions, horrifying torture, gruesome
gang-rapes, and ghastly massacres of ordinary adivasis, the so-called “security forces” have kept in their illegal custody
at least 20-30 adivasis from every village. Whenever they feel the need to show some success over the Maoists in terms
of body count some of these hapless adivasi captives are bumped off with the claim that the “security forces” had killed
Maoist guerrillas in “fierce encounters”. And to prove their claim to the world these Chidambaran liars put on military
uniforms on the dead bodies of poor adivasis. With such a bizarre drama enacted by those supposed to be the guardians
of law, then what other option do the Maoists and the adivasi masses have but to retaliate for their own self-defence?
Now the war-mongering hawks in the Union Home Ministry and various state governments, the political leaders and
spokespersons of the parliamentary parties, the so-called defence analysts, police top brass and their agents employed
in the media are yelling that an all-out war should be declared and the Maoists should be wiped out. The fact is, an all-
out war has already been declared and executed in the most ruthless manner. What these vultures want is perhaps
bombing of entire areas under Maoist control and achieving the peace of the graveyard. If they indulge in such mindless
barbaric acts, the Maoist revolutionary counter-violence will take on new and deadly forms which these apologists
of state terror and state-sponsored terror cannot even imagine.
The BJP and its saffron gang of Hindu fascist terrorists have been yelling like lunatics that Maoists had declared a war
on India and that the BJP would endorse every move of the Congress to finish off the Maoists. In reply to these saffron
terrorist gangsters we assert once again that ours is a war waged by the real India—the India of the oppressed, suppressed
and depressed sections of society; the India of the hungry, impoverished, undernourished masses—against the India that
shines for a handful of parasitic corporate elites, imperialist agents deriving enormous commissions and kickbacks through
42 PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010
nefarious deals, real estate mafia gangs who grab the land of the poor in the name of SEZs and various projects,
unscrupulous contractors and mining syndicates who run a parallel state, horribly corrupt and degenerate political
leaders and bureaucrats, licensed murderers in police uniforms who are infamous for the worst crimes against humanity,
and such other traitors. Ours is a revolutionary war on the saffron gang of terrorists who are armed to the teeth and
dream of transforming our country into a Hindu fascist state by enacting Gujarat-type genocides of religious minorities.
Ours is a genuine People’s War for achieving the real liberation of the people from all types of oppression and exploitation,
and to establish a genuine people’s democratic India. It is not a war on India but a war for the liberation of India from the
clutches of rapacious plunderers.
The sole responsibility for the death of the CRPF men in Dantewada lies with Sonia-Man Mohan-Chidambaram-
Pranab gang and the saffron terrorist Raman Singh regime in Chhattisgarh who are recruiting young boys and girls in a
massive way and using them as cannon-fodder in their dirty counter-revolutionary war against Maoist revolutionaries,
against the Maoist model of development, and in their greed hunt for the mineral wealth of the adivasi regions. The CC,
CPI (Maoist), while offering its heart-felt condolences to the bereaved families of the dead jawans, appeals to the state
and central paramilitary personnel to realize that they are being used as cannon-fodder in this war waged by the
exploiting ruling class in the interests of a tiny parasitic elite against the poor and oppressed people of our country led by
CPI (Maoist).
We appeal to all peace-loving, democratic-minded organizations and individuals in India to understand the context in
which the Maoists are compelled to annihilate the so-called security forces who are creating a virtual reign of terror in
adivasi areas armed with mortars, LMGs and grenades. When dacoits try to loot your house you have to fight back.
And that is what the masses led by the Maoists are doing in all these areas. When the CRPF dacoits enter and loot
the houses of adivasis is it not justified to hit back? The daring attack by our heroic PLGA on a superior enemy force
in terms of fire-power became possible through the enormous mass support the Party and guerrillas enjoy. With the
intelligence inputs from the people who are our eyes and ears and with their active participation we are confident of
defeating the brutal enemy offensive in the name of Operation Green Hunt. There is no short-cut for achieving peace.
Only the most ferocious, most resolute, and the most heroic resistance on the part of the people can defeat the war-
mongers and bring democratic space and peace for the people. Azad, Spokesperson,
Contd..... from Page 41 Central committee, CPI (Maoist)
State terror unleashed on and Tata goons reached the place of set afire… televisions, radios, etc have
protestors - Police invade villages dispute. They first denied media any been destroyed… the girl who was
On March 28, 2010 the Bisthapan entry to the place and then started beaten up by police has been admitted
Birodhi Jan Manch leaders and attacking peaceful protesters. Many to the hospital… its not clear yet how
villagers welcomed the Jajpur District have been injured including women many have been arrested but some 20-
Collector and had a discussion with him and children in indiscriminate rubber 30 people have sustained serious
on the controversial common corridor, bullet firing and lathi charge. They injuries in the attack…
though they knew very well that the entered the villages and unleashed a This is being carried out under the
district administration had other reign of terror. The area has become a supervision of IG Special Operations,
motives. After talks with activists of war zone and more than a dozen Arun Sadangi. Despite Sec 144 being
Bisthapan Birodhi Jan Manch and people including women and children imposed in the area, a large number
more than 300 villagers, the Collector have been seriously injured. One of Tata supporters and BJD cadre
assured them that there would be no person, Member Kalundia received have assembled at the site and are
construction activity for the Common bullet wounds in the chest and legs… giving instructions to the police. All
Corridor Road till the matter is resolved Police has demolished houses and set people who have a conscience must
through dialogue. The administration them ablaze… Cattle have been act now as democracy in Kalinganagar
has gone back on its words and started indiscriminately shot at… Two days is being butchered in the most vulgar
work. SP has said ‘protestors will not before Orissa Day the Govt celebrates manner and the political and
be spared’ and the Collector says with a bloodbath… The police had bureaucratic leadership of the state
“construction of the road will happen later vacated the village but have have completely sold themselves to the
at any cost.” gathered about half a kilometer away Tatas. There is not even a murmur of
in front of Rohit Ferro Chrome Factory protest from any of the mainstream
This gave the Manch no other
alternative but to protest. But on 30th where the construction of the common political party leaders which signifies
corridor road is to begin… All houses the absolute power Tata wields over
March, 29 platoons of armed police
have been ransacked… food stocks them.
with 60 officers and hundreds of BJD PM
PEOPLE’S MARCH May - June 2010 43
Regd. with the RNI No.: KER ENG/2000/2051 Rs. 20/-
Press Release: March 14, 2010

Red Salutes to Maoist leaders comrades Sakhamuri Appa Rao (Ravi) and Kondal Reddy (Ramana)!
Let us avenge the cold-blooded murder of our beloved leaders
by Chidambaram and his lawless goons!

Let us build country-wide wave of people’s struggles to sweep away the fascist regime
led by Sonia-Manmohan-Chidambaram gang!!

On March 12, 2010 a former state committee member of Andhra Pradesh

and current incharge of military intelligence wing of CPI(Maoist), comrade
Sakhamuri Appa Rao, and a district committee member, comrade Kondal Reddy
(also known as Tech Ramana), were murdered in cold blood by the notorious
goons belonging to Andhra Pradesh Special Investigation Bureau and the AP
Grey Hounds. The two leaders were abducted two days earlier from Chennai
and Pune respectively, cruelly tortured by these neo-Nazi mercenaries hired
by the Indian State, and taken to the forests where they were shot dead.
As usual, the story of an encounter was put forth by the government and the
top police officials. As is the practice of the AP Grey Hounds and the SIB, the bodies were placed in the forests where
these comrades had earlier worked—Comrade Sakhamuri Appa Rao’s body was thrown in Nallamala forest while that
of Kondal Reddy in Eturnagaram forest in Warangal. Through these SIB-Grey Hounds-mark murders the reactionary
rulers want to demonstrate to the people of these regions who were associated with the revolutionary movement for a
long period of time, and amongst whom these leaders had once worked, that they will ruthlessly crush any revival of the
revolutionary movement in these one-time hot-beds of revolution. The decision to murder these comrades was taken by
fascist Chidambaram himself in order to create a reign of terror, boost up the morale of his mercenary forces, and to
boast how his fascist state offensive is yielding results. But the Andhra Pradesh police and Chidambaram, who had been
claiming all the while that Nallamala forest has been cleared of the Maoists, had not even thought how the so-called
encounter with such a big Maoist leader in the Nallamala region would mock at their own claims of the past three years.
The entire people know that Maoists had retreated from Nallamala almost three years ago but in their hastiness to
complete their ghastly murder before civil rights and other organizations get alerted, the lawless police goons chose
Prakasham district which is nearer to Chennai.
Comrade Ravi had been to Chennai on some work on the 24th of February and was in touch with other comrades of
the Party until two days prior to his murder. It is clear that he was abducted on March 10. Three more comrades are still
illegally detained by the SIB and Grey Hounds. There is every danger that these would be murdered in cold blood.
Comrade Ravi is one of the senior most leaders from Andhra Pradesh and hails from Khanapur area in Warangal district.
He was elected as an alternate member of the AP State Committee of the Party in 1991. He was arrested in early 1993
and spent 7 1/2 years in prison where he displayed extraordinary revolutionary mettle and led many struggles of the
prisoners along with comrade Patel Sudhakar. He commenced his work as a member of the AP State Committee after
his release in late 2000. He became a member of the State Military Commission and carried on his work in Nallamala
forest region until 2006. Later, he guided the Party’s Intelligence department in AP and the Action Teams. He played a
prominent role in planning and executing tactical counter-offensives against the police forces and attacks on political
targets such as the one on the SP of Prakasham district in 2005 and on former chief minister of AP, Janardhan Reddy, in
2007.
Comrade Kondal Reddy hails from Medak district in South Telangana and has been working in the production
department of the CPI (Maoist) in Andhra Pradesh for over a decade. He played an important role in the production and
distribution of hand grenades and pressure mines. He never hesitated whenever any extremely risky work was allotted
to him by the party leadership and was highly disciplined.
The cold-blooded murders of these Maoist leaders are an integral part of the unprecedented fascist offensive unleashed
by the central and state governments against the CPI (Maoist) in the name of Operation Green Hunt. While the chief
objective of this brutal armed offensive is to create genocide of the adivasis and steal their lands and the forest-mineral
Contd..... on Page 37
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